Adam Mugume, Director of Research & Policy at Bank of Uganda
The Bank of Uganda, the country’s Central Bank has said Uganda has no capacity to print her own currency notes despite calls by President Museveni to have all printing services carried out locally.
The revelation was made by Adam Mugume, Director of Research & Policy at Bank of Uganda while appearing before Parliament’s Finance Committee on Tuesday.
“Currency printing is very sophisticated. The system we have in Uganda with various particular security features, we need to set up a factory to print money which isn’t cost effective because international printers print for the global currency. The cost of printing one note will be very expensive because you are looking at your own note,” Mugume said.
His remarks were in response to a question by Ignatius Wamakuyu (Elgon County) who tasked the Central Bank to explain how far the Central Bank has gone to implement the directive by President Museveni to print currency within Uganda.
“You said the cost of operations largely lie with printing of currency and recently, the President ordered that ordered that all those securities be printed at Uganda Printing and Publishing Company. I don’t know if you have taken that initiative or print currency from abroad,” said Wamakuyu.
It should be recalled that in March 2020, President Museveni wrote to former Premier, Ruhakana Rugunda directing all Government security documents, including currency, election materials, passports, identity cards and driving licences be printed within Uganda so as to save money.
