Speaker Rebecca Kadaga openly assured the executive that Bank of Uganda officials had a case to answer regarding ‘illegal’ closure of seven private banks.
She told the President that these officials couldn’t in any way elude investigations and she further instructed Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) chaired by Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu to kick off the probe.
Whereas COSASE has not fully concluded investigations, the findings area already shocking.
For instance, during the probe, Bank of Uganda officials admitted to have sold off some commercial banks on phone, without due diligence, without inventory reports and without inviting suitable buyers.
Kadaga who advocated for the extension of COSASE’s term of office says she is proud of Katuntu and his team.
Kadaga made the revelations over the weekend while speaking to a local daily newspaper Daily Monitor.
Below we produce the excerpts
There are many committees doing a lot of work but in the public eye,
the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises’s
(Cosase) seems to have stood out. It is true the committee’s report on Bank of
Uganda (BoU) probe has not yet come out, but are you satisfied with their work?
I am really proud of Cosase because in the first session if you remember, they were able to pressurise some [Chinese] companies that had taken our money, especially on the roads.They had taken our money and kept it on fixed deposit accounts instead of paying the project affected persons. So that was a good battle of recovering that money. Now this one of the closed banks, it is very important for the country, I am very proud of Cosase, they have done outstanding work.
Your request to have the committee’s tenure extended has attracted
bitter reactions from the Opposition; what is your take?
I wish the
Opposition could look at the work of Parliament as the work of the people of
Uganda because Cosase is carrying out delegated work of the House.
We are the ones who assigned them that work; in particular, the issue of the
banks was a very difficult one because some of these people involved went to
the President asking not to be investigated. I said, “you know your excellency,
this Bank of Uganda was established by Act of Parliament, they cannot escape
scrutiny.” What Cosase is doing is to really better our banking regime.
I want to appeal to the members of the Opposition that it is just a few weeks. I want to appeal to them to put the interest of Uganda before the need to just change. Because now if we change, I don’t know if the new team will want to hear the evidence again, they want to re-open some of the inquiry, so do we allow them to start again, and have another six month on issues that were discussed? My strategy is let them report to the House and we can make the changes.
Won’t this then set a bad precedent that any committee with unfinished
business will have a leeway to extend its tenure of office?
No there are
other committees that have got work but they segmented it and they had not
started on it.
This is a special one because it has run over (met) different stake holders,
now they are going to meet owners of the banks, you know, so how do you stop
them from meeting the owners? This work is for Uganda, it is not for NRM, not
for FDC, it is not for the Opposition or anybody, it is for the people of
Uganda, it is to improve our governance in this country.
Why wouldn’t you buy into the argument that Cosase should be
constituted into a select committee to continue with the probe?
I found that ridiculous. How can you have a select committee of 30 people? Because I would now have to make a choice and say, “you seven people you are a select committee,” on what basis? “And you others, you remain as Cosase,” that does not work. Let them finish their work, they report and we can make the changes.
I understand that the deputy BoU Governor, Louis Kasekende, wrote to
you regarding his wealth. The probe was already ongoing. How have you handled
his concerns and in any case, why did he have to write to you and not the
chairperson of Cosase?
A witness is entitled to appeal to the head of the institution, even other people have written to me when they thought they were having difficulties; but I have written to him and explained the steps that have been taken and to assure him that he is protected.