A group of Ugandans have denounced the move by Hon Mubarak Munyagwa, the COSASE committee chairperson to use more tax payers’ money to re investigate the already completed probe into the closure of the seven banks by the Central Bank.
The latest is the Uganda Poor Youth Movement a platform which advocates for social and economic transformation most especially among youth in Uganda against Hon Munyagwa and his committee on commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises.
Mr Zahid Sempala, the group’s national spokesperson, while addressing the media in Kampala on Wednesday, denounced the alleged dubious move by Hon Mubarak Munyagwa and his committee to re-investigate the Bank of Uganda officials with the aim of enabling the Bank of Uganda officials to smuggle in doctored documents.
“The Abdu Katuntu committee finalized their report on Bank of Ugada in February 2019 concerning its involvement in the illegal closure of 7 bank hence leading to losses on the part of the owners of these banks. The said report had recommendations and it was presented to the flow of parliament which adopted it,” Sempala said.
He added that “When Hon Mubarak Munyagwa and his team took over office, they chose to re-investigate the Bank of Uganda officials without approval and informing of the Rt Hon speaker of parliament of the need to do the same”.
Sempala noted that the conduct of Hon Munyagwa reflects gross incompetence and is a move not only to waste tax payer’s money and scarce resources at parliament but also a move to “make a name” for himself, by revisiting the just concluded Cosase investigation against Bank of Uganda which was exhausted by Abdul Katuntu and his committee.
“The revisiting of investigations into Bank of Uganda is also a move to aid the smuggling in of evidence by Bank of Uganda officials which they earlier on deliberately refused, neglected or failed to produce and are surprisingly now willing to produce the same voluntarily months after a report was concluded”. He noted.
The platform mouth piece further notes that “As a committee on commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises which mostly looks into issues of accountability and corruption in that sector, it is so absurd that they chose Hon Mubarak Munyagwa whose reputation is wanting in the field of corruption as he is also an accused before the Anti-corruption court and has a pending case. We therefore request that the Rt Hon Speaker intervenes and has him replaced because whereas we are alive to the fact that, “a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty”, it is not in the best interest of our country that we place someone with a pending case of corruption in such a sensitive position”.
The platform further commended Rt Hon Speaker for listening to “our cries as youth and halted the unfounded re-investigation in to the already concluded case of Bank of Uganda officials before Cosase as the same would be duplication of work already concluded without a clear motive”.
