Tropical Bank Uganda has fired its Managing Director, Sameh M. Krekshi (in featured photo) on orders of Bank of Uganda, Business Focus exclusively reports.
According to the termination letter dated October1, 2018 seen by this site, Gerald M. Ssendaula, the Bank’s Board Chairman accuses Krekshi of overdrawing his account contrary to BoU regulations.
“It is within your knowledge that during the on-site examination of Tropical Bank Ltd for the year 2017, Bank of Uganda established that your account was continuously overdrawn.
“The Central Bank recently conducted a follow up examination and established that the anomaly was never rectified as the overdrawn position was only regularized as recently as 12th September 2018, three months after the same was highlighted to the Board of directors,” the termination letter reads in part.
It adds: “This therefore serves to notify you of Bank of Uganda’s directive contained in their letter EDS.112.100 dated 27th September, 2018 to immediately terminate you from the services of Tropical Bank Ltd. You are henceforth requested to handover office and all the Bank’s property in your possession or under your control to the Executive Director, Mr. Dennis Kakeeto.”
Industry sources confirmed this development to Business Focus. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that there’s a group of people within the Bank that are eying US$ 7million lying on one of the accounts for Libyan shares, a thing that has left top officials of the bank divided.
The termination letter is copied to the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Governor, Bank of Uganda, , Executive Director, Supervision Bank of Uganda, Board Chairman, Libyan Foreign Bank and General Manager Libyan Foreign Bank.
However, Tropical Bank’s website is yet to be updated. It still shows that Krekshi Sameh Mahmud is the Managing Director.
According to his profile, he was General Manager in Tropical Bank since 2015, during which period he particularly spearheaded the transformational thrust of the bank’s corporate drive as an institution which resulted in its ‘now famous and visible 2016 -2020 Strategic Vision.’
“He is a visionary, action oriented and hands-on Leader, with over 20 years’ experience in; Treasury Operations; Trade Finance; Investment and Portfolio Management; International relations and Marketing; General bank Operations among others,” his profile reads.
Tropical Bank is one of the loss making banks in Uganda. The bank made a loss of Shs5.5bn in 2017, down from a loss Shs13.4bn in 2016.
According to a critical analysis of Business Focus figures, Tropical Bank has been suffering from high Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) for some years.
Its NPLs reduced to Shs28.7bn in 2017, down from Shs38.27bn in 2016, while bad loans written off increased to Shs12.06bn in 2017 from Shs11.79bn in 2016.
Details about the rot at Tropical Bank to follow
