Three
Bank of Uganda employees charged in the anti-corruption court over a
procurement scandal have taken leave from office in line with the Public
service rules that require a public servant to step aside, in the face of an investigation.
The three officials are Francis Kakeeto, the Assistant Currency Director Bank
of Uganda Mbale Branch, Fred Vito Wanyama, the Verification Officer and the
Currency Director, Charles Malinga Akol.
They were charged in the response to the currency that BoU was bringing into
the country in April from Paris. BoU Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile said
the investigation was in relation to a consignment that the Central Bank
received on April 27, 2019.
“During the verification process, BOU staff reported an anomaly in the
inventory of the expected consignment,” Mutebile stated this month. Latest
details have shown that the problem was with the full charter plane that was
supposed to carry only BoU cargo but carried five extra pallets that the
central bank didn’t know their origin. BoU only knew 20 pallets that had 70
million pieces of 5,000 bill note.
On Tuesday, the officials charged with abuse of office and corruption were
granted bail up to August 2, 2019, when they will return to the anti-corruption
court for the hearing of their case.
Charity Mugumya, the BoU spokesperson, has told URN that the trio is not in
office. Another official at BoU told URN that in general, the institution
follows public service rules that call for interdiction of the officials in
question. The official added the three officials have not appeared at the
office from Wednesday, this week.
The central bank, being a public agency, follows these rules in addition to its
Human Resource Manual.
An informer in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), said
that ideally, the BoU suspects must leave office to pave way for
investigations. But this informer was sceptical that “there is a problem
with the Public Service Standing Orders which may not be applicable at the
Central Bank”.
BoU is suffering a reputation crisis and is doing all it can to downplay
the implications of the currency saga. According to the Standing Orders of
Public Service, charges against an officer are investigated expeditiously and
concluded. It adds that where an officer is interdicted, the Responsible
Officer shall ensure that the investigation is done expeditiously in any case
within (three) 3 months.
Mary Katarikawe, the BoU operations director, told reporters last week that the
central bank wants to know what exactly was contained in the extra cargo and
how it got into a full charter plane, putting the genuine BoU cargo at risk.
Oberthur Fiduciare, the company contracted by Bank of Uganda to print Ugandan
currency, has reportedly offered to compensate the central bank for the extra
pallets that were irregularly loaded onto the chartered currency plane.
–URN
