The Speaker of Ugandan Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has revealed why she overruled her deputy Jacob Oulanyah to allow the Auditor General (AG), John Muwanga to audit the Bank of Uganda on the controversial closure of seven banks.
“The Auditor General reported that for seventeen (17) years, there has been no report on the closed banks. By law, they (BoU) should have given us a report in the first twelve months but it is now 17years, so the Committee wrote to the Auditor General to say can you audit, so the Auditor General gave an interim report which showed areas of inadequacies,” Kadaga said, adding: “…that is why I said they should be audited and I told the Auditor General to complete the audit.”
Kadaga made the remarks during a live twitter chat on Monday.
Earlier, her deputy Oulanyah had stopped the audit on some banks.
The AG’s preliminary report was compiled by March30, 2018 after a request by the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises.
The audit only covered Global Trust Bank that was closed in 2014, International Credit Bank that was closed in September 1998, Co-operative Bank Ltd and Greenland Bank that were closed in 1999.
The report indicates that BoU had earlier refused to provide the AG with documents relating to the closure of National Bank of Commerce (NBC) in 2012, Crane Bank and Teefe Bank, on grounds that there were pending court cases, challenging the closure of NBC and Crane Bank.
However, a few weeks ago Kadaga gave the AG Muwanga green light to audit BoU on the above banks.
In the draft BoU audit report, the AG says at the time of closure of GTB, BoU correspondents indicated that 25 certified titles which had been taken to GTB as security for loans were found to be missing.
The AG adds that Article 4.2 of the Purchase of Assets and Assumption of Liabilities Agreement required the liquidator (BoU) to preserve and safely keep all files, books of accounts and records.
The report indicates that BoU didn’t transfer the titles in question to dfcu bank that purchase the assets and liabilities of GTB. BoU has since been ordered to recover the titles in question.
