The investigative committee of parliament- COSASE in one of its recommendations after probing the sale and closure of seven commercial banks wants top administrators of Bank of Uganda held liable for the mismanagement they exhibited while closing these banks.
Members of COSASE led by Bugweri County and a prominent lawyer Abdu Katuntu, are currently in Jinja have finalised a report which will be submitted to Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga not later than February 22.
The report will thus be subjected to a debate on the Hansard on whether its recommendations can be implemented.
A source in Jinja who wished to remain unnamed revealed that so far various recommended have been undertaken by the committee based on the findings.
“The report will not be so much different from what the Auditor General authored because both MPs and Mr. Muwanga seems to have similar findings,” a source said.
“But for COSASE its report has in depth analysis and findings. That what could differentiate the two reports,” adds a source.
Whereas the Auditor General unearthed collusion, malice and questioned the motive of Bank of Uganda officials to deliberately close the 7 banks including Crane Bank which was owned by businessman Sudhir Ruparelia, he didn’t make recommendations but rather concluded that the sale was in bad faith.
Premising on Auditor General’s report, Speaker Kadaga authorized Kantu led committee to make its independent investigations.
The probe saw various stakeholders summoned and grilled over their role in what can be termed as “hostile takeover”, controversial sale and closure of the commercial banks.
As the probe was conducted on camera and open to the media, it therefore became explicit that the Central Bank top officials hard a hand in the mess of these banks.
Those whose names were linked to unscrupulous dealings in disposing off the banks particularly Crane Bank include, former Executive Director that headed supervision at Bank of Uganda, Ms Justine Bagyenda, Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende, Benedicto Ssekabira the Drector Financial Markets Development and Margret Kasuule head of Legal Affairs.
The investigations placed the ilk in compromising positions.
Recommendations
Our source in Jinja said that among many sanctions, COSASE advises that the Financial act of 2014 should be revisited so as to trim powers of top administrators like the Executive director in charge of supervision.
The commendation hinges on the narrative of how Bagyenda would most of the time execute duties without knowledge of her boss, the Governor because the law allowed her to.
It must be remembered that MPs heard that Bagyenda would sometimes usurp deputy governor’s authority.
Further, COSASE pushes for the refund of shs 270 billion which couldn’t be traced after the Central Bank claimed it had injected 478 billion into Crane Bank as liquidity support.
Another recommendation is laying off top officials of the regulator because they supervised unscrupulous transactions in sale of 7 banks.
However, this website couldn’t independently verify these recommendations as efforts to contact MPs in Jinja remained futile.
