Renown city lawyer Fred Muwema has issued a stinging letter to Uganda Bankers Association after its CEO Mathias Katamba regarded the Court Judge in favour of businessman Hamis Kiggundu (Ham) as “reckless.”
Through his law firm Muwema and Co Advocates, Mr Muwema represented Hamis Kiggundu in Court and defeated Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) on Wednesday in a historic ruling in which Justice Henry Peter Adonyo ordered the bank to refund shs 120 billion which it had deducted from Ham’s accounts for 10 years.
Standing with the bank, the association issued a letter expressing distress at the judgment and further asked the intervention of Bank of Uganda and other government institutions.
In response to UBA’s communication, lawyer Muwema said Mathias Katamba acted in ignorance by trying to misinterpret the judgement.
Below is Muwema’s letter
We, together with M/s Kimara Advocates act for Ham Enterprises Ltd, Kiggs International (U) Ltd and Kiggundu Hamis, the Plaintiffs in the above matter.
Our attention has been drawn to the media release you published on the 8th day of October 2020 in respect of a ruling issued in the above matter by Hon Dr Henry Peter Adonyo, the Head of the High Court Commercial Division.
In the media release which you circulated electronically on social media platforms, you referred to the said ruling as a reckless judgement on the unfounded allegation that it declared syndicated loans in Uganda to be illegal.
In another version of the media release which carried your signatures, you panicked and withdrew the word reckless from the statement but the damage had already been done.
What we find very odd is that you were capable of sustaining such a malevolent attack on the judgement of the Court without citing a single law or regulation to support your assertions.
Since you have not demonstrated a full understanding of the facts and the law governing our Clients’ case, we have had no option but to correct your deliberate misrepresentation and false alarm about the ruling and judgement in the case.
You are however responsible for the flurry of fake news arising from your missive which has done a considerable job in misinforming the Banking sector and all stakeholders alike.
For the purpose of bringing back some respectability and sobriety to the subject, we wish to highlight some of the important points and correct implications which can be discerned from the case;
(a) Our Clients’ case against DTB Uganda was for the recovery of colossal sums of money in the amounts of US$ 23m and Ugshs.34bn. These amounts were unlawfully debited from our Clients’ accounts for a period of over nine (9) years.
(b) The High Court rightly entered judgement in favour of our Client for the above sum against DTB Uganda after it struck out its defence on account of the illegalities which had been established.
(c) This is not the first time nor the last time that a Bank Customer has accused or will accuse a Bank of such predatory and unethical conduct of financial pilferage.
(d) We wonder why the UBA has not come out to condemn some of its errant members who go against the UBA core values of integrity, transparency, professionalism, good governance and service excellence.