A whistleblower who operates on Nasser Road in Kampala has written to the Bank of Uganda (BoU) claiming customer deposits at Bank of Africa could be at risk of being stolen by staff.
Writing on September 30, 2023, to the BoU Governor, Moses Mukasa, the whistleblower, said he was cleaning the office, he landed on garnish orders from Bank of Africa, which to him was strange.
“I work from Nasser road here in Kampala. But as I was sweeping our office, I landed on the attached draft document. And from this document, it seems that there is a problem at the Bank of Africa in Uganda. I have personally seen several people on this Nasser Road premises processing fake court garnish orders to be used in Bank of Africa Uganda,” he said.
Another whistleblower, Abubaker Kiberu who claims to be a senior manager at the bank (Bank of Africa) seems to confirm Mukasa’s fears, alleging that the managing director Arthur Isiko mistreats, and underpays staff, causing an exodus of the human resource and that about Shs700 million has been stolen from dormant accounts.
“The MD of Bank of Africa- Uganda, mistreats, and underpays staff this is why there is a big and abnormal exodus. We are really paid so little by this man, we need help from Allah. As if that is not enough, his poor people management skills are driving the unavoidable collapse of the bank. It’s just a matter of time if he doesn’t step aside. We need new management,” he said.
He added: “Staff leaving would be okay, but those who have stayed have resorted to stealing customers funds. What do you expect when you pay peanuts and yet staff handle billions every day? Imagine counting billions when you cannot afford transport to work. The bank is asking you to either stop working or to quit.”
According to Kiberu, both tellers at the counters and senior staff at the bank are all involved in siphoning depositors’ money. “It’s not only tellers who are stealing. Even some top officials are involved in these games. Conniving with and asking for cutbacks on customer loans is the norm. I won’t mention names but Kiddawalime and Great Lakes are incidents I can’t keep silent about. Look into these cases.”
Alleges that Isiko wants to cause the collapse of the bank. “So many senior staff are leaving because of his bad actions. Many staff have got internal loans above their thresholds. So many staff are stealing money from the bank using internal rackets.”
He alleges that the newest racket involves the bank’s legal team and some senior staff who work with tellers to identify and steal funds from dormant customer accounts using Nasser road forged court garnishee orders.
Shs700 million stolen
Kiberu says over Shs700 million could have been stolen so far.
“Over Shs700 million has been systematically siphoned. At the moment, there is an internal audit on a case of Shs500 million stolen using forged Nasser road garnish orders, but nothing positive will come out because the internal auditors are on huge MD pay cheques. There is need for an independent external audit on these forged garnish orders that have been used to siphon billions of shillings from dormant accounts in the bank.”