Parliament has Wednesday opened fresh investigations into the fraudulent closure of seven commercial banks and irregular operations of Bank of Uganda as revealed by the Auditor General’s report last month.
The MPs on Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) will internalize the Auditor General’s findings which exposed Bank of Uganda top administrators as having played a malicious role in closing seven banks since 1993 including the hotly contested sale of Crane Bank owned by property mogul Sudhir Ruparelia.
The irregularities unearthed include unaccounted for money, missing land titles, disputed payments to external lawyers and customer loans that were inherited from closed banks and sold at an undervalued rate without justification.
Bank of Uganda officials led by Governor Emmanuel Mutebile will be questioned in relation to the closure of Teefe Bank (1993), International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999), The Co-operative Bank (1999), National Bank of Commerce (2012), Global Trust Bank (2014) and the sale of Crane Bank Ltd (CBL) to dfcu (2016) at Shs200b.
According to Daily Monitor Newspaper the forensic report indicated that assets worth Shs23b formerly owned by GTB were not transferred to dfcu in the purchase and assumption agreements when the bank was closed in July 2014. The assets included cash balances (Shs6.6b), amounts due from other banking institutions[Shs2.3b], other assets (Shs5.1b),amounts due from group companies (Shs9m), property and equipment (Shs5.6b),intangible assets(Shs758m) and deferred tax (Shs2.4b).
Further the Auditor General couldn’t trace shs9b that was taken from other banking institutions as indicated in the inventory report but was not be reflected on the recovery account.
COSASE head Hon Abdul Katuntu confirmed to Daily Monitor without divulging more details that his committee will have a preparatory meeting on Wednesday and vowed that no official implicated will spared.
“We are going to start from where we ended last year. We are going to meet as a committee and plan how to scrutinise the Auditor General’s report sent to us by the Speaker including the special audit into Bank of Uganda,” Katuntu said.
Those who will face the committee include, Bank of Uganda officials led by Mr. Mutebile his deputy Louis Kasekende, former commercial bank director of supervision Justine Bagyenda, Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija and the owners of the affected Banks.