MPs have continued to demand for the action against Bank of Uganda (BoU) officials who were implicated in the sale and acquisition of seven defunct banks.
In 2018, MPs on parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) made the recommendation in their report following a recent probe of BoU on the closure of seven banks such as; Teefe Trust Bank, Greenland Bank, International Credit Bank, Cooperative Bank, National Bank of Commerce, Global Trust Bank Uganda and Crane Bank Limited. The banks were controversially closed between 1993 and October 2016.
The report recommended that the Bank of Uganda (BoU) Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile and his deputy Dr Louis Kasekende be sacked from the Central Bank’s Board of Directors if the institution is to run its operations efficiently in the future.
The MPs in their report say that much as Article 161 (4), provides that the Governor and deputy Governor shall be Chairperson and Vice Chairperson respectively, good governance principles would require that the position of the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of the board is separated from the position of the Chief Executive Officer (Tumusiime-Mutebile) and his deputy (Kasekende).
“It is the recommendation of this committee (COSASE) therefore, that Article 161 (4) be reviewed to separate the offices of the leadership of the Board and top management of BoU,” the report partly says.
In tandem the office of leader of opposition made several recommendations which included the naming and individually holding bank accountable for the mess exhibited in the sale and acquisition banks.
Among the officials mentioned as not doing their work and they should have done, are the current Ben Sekabira, Director Financial Markets Development Coordination and Edward Katimbo Mugwanya, who was the statutory manager of CBL. Sekabira’s matter was forwarded to the Police CID investigation.
Ms Bagyenda was heavily involved in the controversial closure and sale of Crane Bank Limited (CBL) to its rival Dfcu Bank in January 2017 at Shs 200 billion paid in installments, the central bank, having spent Shs478 billions of taxpayers’ on CBL before it sold it to Dfcu Bank.
Others heavily mentioned for failure to adhere to the FIA procedures are Governor Emmanuel Mutebile and his deputy Dr. Louis Kasekende. Parliament however asked police other agencies to act against the bank officials.
To date, no BoU official has been arrested or prosecuted in courts of law. Munira Ali spokesperson of the Inspectorate of Government (IG) said that Inspectorate of Government (IG) is not investigating any case in relation to the Parliament recommendations on closure of commercial banks.
“We have not carried out any investigations about that. We have not done anything because that would have been Parliament to forward to us but they did not.”
Recently, police’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (CID) spokesperson Charles Twine confirmed that the officials are under investigations however he didn’t delve into details.
