Presidential Advisor on Media Tamale Mirundi has appealed to his boss to hastily reign in on corrupt officials in Central Bank who maliciously sacrificed seven commercial banks as indicated by the Auditor General.
Mr. John Muwanga kicked off a probe in April into closure of seven private financial institutions by Bank of Uganda whose findings were shocking.
The Auditor General has since released an 80 page report which he submitted to Parliament and several other government organisations.
A key highlight of this report is how Bank of Uganda officials colluded with DFCU Bank to initiate a deal to ‘swallow’ Crane Bank which belonged to city businessman Sudhir Ruparelia.
At the time of its closure, the Central Bank revealed how the institution had become grossly insolvent and couldn’t be recapitalised into operational.
However, this justification by the Muteebile administration was dispelled by Mr. Muwanga who found out that Crane Bank could have been possibly restored to operational and full compliance with capital adequacy by the Central Bank.
Muwanga further exposed gaps in the way the Central Bank has for long mismanaged sale of 7 private banks 1993 and 2017.
The Attorney General deeply scrutinised the hotly contested sale of Sudhir’s bank on grounds that it had caused a loss of shs 300bn.
It however was discovered that Central Bank injected shs 400 billion at a time Crane Bank was under receivership.
But questions emerge how then could Bank of Uganda ‘give away’ Crane Bank to DFCU at a cost of shs 200 billion without recouping it investment, “was it a donation to DFCU?”
Again, the Auditor General established DFCU only paid shs 139 billion to take over liabilities and assets of Crane Bank.
The report thus concluded that Bank of Uganda violated all the procedures undertaken before a decision is reached to sale off a private commercial bank.
Mirundi’s unleashes ‘venom’
Appearing on his weekly talk show on local TV NBS, Tamale Mirundi scoffed at Bank of Uganda top officials who are being haunted by ‘Crane Bank ghost.’
Mirundi wondered if a deputy Governor Louis Kasekende has been able to accumulate the vast wealth, “how about his boss Muteebile?”
Last week, the national was startled by the properties Kasekende owns across the country as he declared his wealth to the Inspectorate of Government as required by the law.
Mirundi said that the wealth of these bank officials is a clear manifestation of the ‘broad day light theft’ exposed by the Auditor General.
Mirundi further expressed dismay how these implicated officials want to intimidate the media to cover up their shenanigans.
He warned: “Don’t intimidate everybody, the issue is one, you stole Sudhir’s bank. He is as smart as you, you have to vomit it to have your peace. Sudhir doesn’t want anything from you, he only wants his bank, period”.
He appealed to President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to reign in on Central Bank to restore sanity in the banking sector.
“The President should also know that these people stole like another theft that has happened before. He should work on them and give back Sudhir his bank,” he said.
