Public servants are by law required to declare their wealth to the Inspector General of Government, at the start of every year.
At the start of this year, The Inspector General of Government (IGG) said she was looking into the assets and liabilities of at least 100 top Bank of Uganda (BoU) officials, including the Governor, Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile and his deputy Louis A. Kasekende.
Details from the declaration of income, assets and liabilities forms link senior BoU officials to a number of properties in upscale areas of Kampala, Wakiso and other areas. The declarations to the IGG also contain full details on where senior BoU officials got the money for buying the prime assets in question, including posh cars.
This website has had exclusive access to the wealth declaration form of the deputy governor Louis Kasekende whose wealth has shocked many in the public service.
Kasekende declared his annual income at 559,848,000 million shillings annually, with allowances pegged at 162,798,484 million shillings.
However, the deputy governor listed assets especially commercial buildings worth over 50 billion with the most expensive being a commercial building co-owned with Andrew Kasekende, on Gaba Close valued at 2.1 billion.
Kasekende’s declared properties are based in Kampala’s high end neigborhoods including Ntinda, Naguru, Gaba and Kololo, plus upcoming suburbs like Lubowa. The deputy governor also declared 5 commercial properties with the least priced being valued at 0.39 billion and one residential property whose valued was listed as 0.5 billion.
Other assets listed by the deputy governor include two Mercedes Benz cars,and one Toyota Hilux Pick-Up truck.
Kasekende’s sources of income were declared income from 3489 shares held in GreenHill Holdings which owns a school, savings from salary, allowances and research grants.
Other sources of income listed were gratuity payments from BOU, AFB and World Bank loans, loans from other commercial banks, rental income, pension from BOU and disturbance allowance from his employer, Bank of Uganda.
Sources at BOU said a confidential Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) report on the suspicious wealth of Justine Bagyenda, the former BoU director for commercial bank’s supervision, triggered the IGG verification, while others pointed at the ‘power struggle’ between the IGG and the Governor.
Ms Bagyenda, who has since left BoU, is under a separate investigation by the IGG over allegations of illicit accumulation of wealth. The FIA investigated allegations of money laundering and submitted a confidential report to the IGG for further investigations. The IGG is still verifying her assets.
In March, the IGG, Justice Irene Mulyagonja, threatened to arrest the Governor and warned that should any official of Bank of Uganda decline to respond to her summons, an arrest warrant could be issued against that person.
The IGG spokesperson, Ms Munira Ali, confirmed the verification exercise conducted within the confines of the Leadership Code Act and indicated that the IGG was validating income, assets and liabilities for Mr Kasekende and other BoU officials.
“We can investigate BoU because it is a public office. The IG investigates procedures, especially administrative, not technical.We conduct verification of the leaders’ declarations whenever they declare. Our target every year is to verify 100 public officials. This time round, we have some BoU officials whose declaration is being verified and they are aware because we informed them,” she told Daily Monitor Newspaper
The BoU communications director, Ms Charity Mugumya, yesterday explained told Daily Monitor Newspaper that “BoU employees at middle management level and above declare their income, assets and liabilities to the office of the IGG in line with the Leadership Code Act of 2002. Therefore, it is the personal responsibility of the managers to comply with the law.”
The IGG investigators seek to validate the source of income as captured by BoU officials on the 2017 online declaration forms. The BoU officials, according to sources, will be cross-examined in trying to verify whether the income, assets and liabilities were not acquired using stolen public funds.
