The controversial collapse of Crane Bank, the 4th largest bank by assets then is tearing apart Bank of Uganda (BoU), the regulator of Uganda’s banking sector, Business Focus reports.
According to credible sources, all isn’t well at BoU, with a lot of blame game that has resulted into power struggle. Sources say some top officials at BoU are happy about the current storm that has put BoU Governor, Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile in a tight corner.
“There’s a group [in BoU] that wants Mutebile and other top officials out of Bank of Uganda; they say they are incompetent and have no new ideas to take the banking sector forward,” a source said.
Indeed in an interview with Daily Monitor, Mutebile blamed the Crane Bank mess to his junior, Justine Bagyenda, the Executive Director in charge of Supervision (of Commercial Banks).
“…Who was doing the work of supervision? Okay it was Bnak of Uganda staff, but not the entire BoU. BoU has an executive director in charge of supervision,” Mutebile said, adding: “I am responsible for whatever went wrong, but I am not criminally culpable.”
On October 20, 2016, BoU took over the management of Crane Bank after it became “a significantly undercapitalized institution.” Prior to its takeover, Crane bank had enjoyed 21 years of uninterrupted and tremendous growth.
On January27, 2017, BoU announced that dfcu bank had acquired Crane Bank after beating off competition from other 12 financial institutions to emerge winner. BoU has since sued Sudhir Ruparelia and his firm; Meera Investments Ltd for causing financial loss to Crane Bank.
