As the health condition of the Governor Bank of Uganda (BoU) Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile continues to deteriorate with less hope of seeing him back on his feet, doctors said that he will recover.
On Tuesday Eagle Online exclusively broke the news of his admission to Aga Khan Hospital after he collapsed on 31 December 2021. Charity Mugumya, the head of communications at BoU Said the Governor is not ill but on a routine check up at the Kenya based hospital and will return when discharged.
According to the sources, some family members are mooting the idea of seeing him retire in June this year with three and half years left on his contract.
“Some family members wants him to retire from BoU after serving for two decades. The Doctors established some complications with his nerves at the back of his neck. They said that if he survives, he will resort to using a wheelchair,” the source said.
The frail economist has been on and off duty due to diabetes related complications. “The big man was put on dialysis. He was forced to ditch his favorite Whiskey because his kidneys had weakened and they couldn’t do their excretion job,” the source told this Website.
The source said in September last year, Mutebile was admitted at Nakasero hospital for a full week. He was later discharged and continued to be monitored from his Kololo based home. He was later admitted to Cleveland hospital Abu Dhabi.
Upon receiving emails confirming that the Governor is sick, several BoU employees have praised him for being flexible, kind and focused on streamlining the Bank.
“We have been receiving interest free loans during his tenure and we have gained wealth. I can only thank him and wish him a quick recovery,” BoU employee said adding that “Before mafias infiltrated the bank changing policies under the guise of streamlining the bank but in actual sense they wanted to control it. I assure you that we worked in the most desirable conditions.”
Another employee said the big man is so appreciative, noting that at the end of year parties, the frail and shaky Governor would move around to every table applauding employees for working hard in their respective departments.
The 72 year old, whose contract was renewed on January 12th, 2021 for five years, has been at the helm of the central bank since 2001. He is the longest serving Chief Executive in the Bank of Uganda’s history. He is credited with many of the sound economic policies adopted by the Uganda government at the urging of the central bank during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.
Amidst Covid-19 pandemic Mutebile and his team have kept Uganda’s economy generally stable. Inflation has been contained within the BOU target of 5% and the Shilling has remained stable against major currencies.
In tandem, the Governor has superintended over dubious activities which tainted the image of the Bank. It should be recalled that in February 2018 Mutebile made staff changes where he replaced former Executive Director of Supervision Justine Bagyenda with Dr. Tumubweine Twinemanzi.
President Yoweri Museveni later appointed a committee to investigate staff changes. Later it was established that Mutebile made some transfers and appointed Twinemanzi without consulting other members of the BoU board, a decision they said was wrong as the Governor had no powers to make changes single handedly.
Worse still, most of the staff head picked by the governor did not meet the qualifications and experience required for the jobs. For instance, Dr. Tumubweine didn’t have any experience in commercial banking.
