Uganda’s Central Bank is involved in another financial scandal in which officials there are accused of not paying the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) the mandatory monthly remittances of about Shs2 billion deducted from eight employees’ salaries as required by the Act establishing the NSSF.
Reports indicate that the Bank of Uganda’s legal team are also in trouble after the Law Council denied them practicing rights after it emerged that they helped some of the former employees at the bank to evade sending the remittances to NSSF. Some of the staff in the department are also implicated in the scam, including its head Margret Kasule.
The reports add that BoU under declared the ages of some employees even as they were of age having clocked 60 years, the mandatory retirement age in Uganda for public servants.
It is said that when NSSF continued asking for remittances of the officials whose age was under declared, BoU administrators made a u-turn and made it clear that the officials had retired, forgetting that they had lied about the ages of the officials.
However, another source at fund said when NSSF did an audit on BoU, it established that close to Shs50 billion had not been disclosed by BoU officials. This has caused exchanges between NSSF and BoU top officials. The amount is said to be part of all the money BoU has been under declaring to NSSF.
“When parliament’s COSASE committee started investigations on those BoU chaps, people thought it was a witch hunt but that institution needs urgent reforms because people there are doing things with impunity”. a source at the fund said.
NSSF has declined to grant BoU a clearance licence as regards the affected officials which has resulted into denial by law council to grant them a practicing license. Law Council says that the due processes has to be followed before the certificate can be issued.
According to a leaked letter dated March 6, 2019, NSSF wants BoU to provide them with copies of National Identity cards for its staff so that they can verify the correct ages of the affected employees with the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA).
“We refer to the above subject and the emails between NSSF and Bank of Uganda on the matter. We understand the urgency of the situation , however, you will appreciate that we have to follow due process of assessing an employer’s records to ensure compliance with NSSF, before we can issue out a clearance certificate” reads the letter in part.
NSSF is said to be not satisfied as recently BoU only availed to them between August 2018 and January 2019 did not provide all information on staff below 55 years and those above 55 years.
A source said that some of BoU staff have contested dates of birth and that also exist other variances.
Other sources said NSSF demands about Shs10 billion from BoU.
The latest BoU financial scam comes a almost a month after parliament’s committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) pinned officials for carelessly closing seven commercial banks, without following the law. Parliament is yet to furnish the public with final recommendations of the COSASE probe that established BoU officials failed to produce some of the documents related to the sale of banks.
