The bodyguard of former Bank of Uganda (BoU) Executive Director in charge of Supervision, Justine Bagyenda has revealed that lawyer Timothy Kanyerezi Masembe of MMAKs Advocates was present on the day they sneaked out documents from the Central Bank.
Juliet Adikolet (Bagyenda bodyguard) made the remarks on Thursday while appearing before Parliament’s Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).
This was after Milton Orech, the Director Security at BoU revealed that they realized that on 4th February 2018, two visitors came to the Bank without clearance. It was a Sunday evening.
When reviewing the footage, Committee Chairperson, Abdu Katuntu asked Adikolet to reveal the gentleman behind her [in the video].
“That is [Timothy Kanyerezi] Masembe [lawyer belonging to MMAKs Advocates],” she replied.
The other person visitor that accessed BoU on that Sunday was Bank of Baroda Managing Director, Ashrin Kumar. The two Bagyenda visitors accessed BoU without clearance.
Orech said it wasn’t t Bagyenda responsible with clearing them, but she facilitated their entering on that day and they went to her office. It was also discovered that the vehicle that carried out the documents in question wasn’t registered.
When probed, Adikolet said she was sent by her boss to pick the visitors.
“My work is to give clearance to my principal, other issues aren’t my business because now the questions are becoming many,” she said, angering the MPs.
Mbarara Municipality MP, Michael Tusiime read out the Bank of Uganda administration manual that gives a category of the time to access the Bank and particularly non staff which is Monday-Friday between 8:30AM-5Pm.
However, Bagyenda’s visitors came on a Sunday evening according to the video footage.
Asked about the manual, Bagyenda, who has worked at the Central Bank for 35 years and four months said: “I didn’t know.”
Bagyenda added that she didn’t seek clearance for her visitors “because I didn’t know it was a policy.”
However, the BoU Security boss said it is the Human Resource to make sure staff understand the manual.
“As far as I know, there were several reminders to staff to adhere to manual. Manual is an instrument that is accessible to everybody in the bank,” he said.
Bagyenda failed to table minutes of the meeting and what it was all about.
