By Andrew Irumba
Whoever is bewitching Bank of Uganda officials is not about to give up on the powerful juju.
As you read this, three staff of Bank of Uganda in Mbale have been arrested in a deadly covat joint operation by the police and army as they tried to smuggle sacks of money that was meant to be shredded.
Our Spies have established that the three are reportedly part of the racket in Bank of Uganda that smuggle out money which is supposed to be destroyed.
However, their luck ran out after a combined team of security operatives from police, intelligence and military stormed the currency centre after a tip off from an internal informer.
The operation was conducted after the Financial Intelligence Authority(FIA) learnt that it had become norm for money which was supposed to be destroyed to be ferried outside the bank and shared amongst top staff.
“It is true, we have three staff of Bank of Uganda who were caught red-handed smuggling money outside which is against the norms of the Central bank.” said a source who preferred anonymity.
Sources have also revealed that several other staff members suspected to have been involved in the scam have since been suspended from the Bank.
It has since been established that in June this year a cleaner at BoU had been expelled after he questioned why money was mixed with rubbish. That was fter he informed security at the bank that money had been packed in rubbish sacks instead of rubbish. However, security told him to keep it off as it was the luggage of top bosses and so it didn’t concern him. His boss was subsequently called and told to change the said cleaner if he wanted his contract with BoU to continue.
In the same month of June, Col. Edith Nakalema’s State House Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) and police arrested several BoU officials in charge of currency, procurement and security and officials from the Customs Department, airport police officers and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) staff.
The operation came after BoU Governor Prof. Tumusiime Mutebile called upon Nakalema to investigate anomalies in the Central Bank’s procurement department.
Thereafter word started spreading that Nakalema’s team was investigating allegations that extra Shs90Bn has been printed separately and shipped into Uganda without Tumusiime’s knowledge or consent, by some shrewd BoU officials.
Consequently, the director of Currency department at Bank of Uganda, Charles Malinga was arrested and arraigned before Anti-Corruption Court in Kololo over the extra printing of money.
However, before his court appearance, Francis Kakeeto, a branch manager at Mbale and Fred Wanyama had been charged with abuse of office and in alternative corruption which they both denied before magistrate Herbert Asiimwe.
Prosecution informed court that on April 26, 2019 between France, Belgium and Entebbe airport, the duo while on assignment by their employer to carry out a pre-shipment inspection of printed materials in France, in abuse of the authority to offices did an arbitrary act prejudicial to the interest of their employer and allowed the inclusion of unauthorized case on a cargo plane fully chartered by BoU.
Hardly a month after, Uganda Police detectives were reported to be investigating Shs400Bn that BoU officials transferred and stored in BoU Masaka Currency Centre in a room without CCTV cameras, meaning the money could be stolen without tracing it.
The money stash is said to have been transferred to Masaka on June 14, 2019, the time when investigators started probing BoU and other officials over the anomaly in the consignment of the 20 pallets packed with Uganda Shillings notes that were delivered at Entebbe International Airport by BoU chartered plane on April 26, even though, extra 5 pallets were on board and their whereabouts is unknown.
Bank of Uganda officials are currently battling allegations that they involved in multibillion scandals in regard to the sale of seven commercial banks which included tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia’s Crane Bank limited.
As if that is not enough, BoU this week lost a case it had filed against Sudhir, purporting to try to recover Shs397Bn from Sudhir, which they claimed he had taken out of Crane bank before they closed it and later sold it to dfcu bank under dubious circumstances.
