By our reporter
President Yoweri Museveni has summoned the Inspector General of Government (IGG) lady Justice Irene Mulyagonja Kakooza and Governor Bank of Uganda Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile to mediate the ongoing dead lock between the two powerful government personalities.
Museveni’s intervention comes at a time when the two powerful officials are bickering over Governor’s recent staff changes and whether IGG Irine Mulyagonja has powers to reverse or to question decisions of the governor at the BoU.
Apparently Mulyagonja insists that she must investigate the Central Bank to rule out whether the staff reshuffles he made recently that ended Justine Bagyenda’s career at the Bank of Uganda meet the minimum legal standards or not,a move the governor doesn’t agree with.
Mutebile made sweeping changes at Bank of Uganda in February, with the reshuffle affecting eight executive directors, 13 directors, 24 assistants/deputy directors and four staff members including Banks’ Director for Supervision Justine Bagyenda.
Bagyenda was replaced with Dr. Tumubweine Twinemanzi though she refused to hand over office saying she was illegally fired.
The IGG responded by ordering that the changes be halted until investigations are concluded.
But in a hard hitting 5-paged letter, Mr Mutebile said the BoU wouldn’t respect IGG’s attempts to interfere with the matters of the Central Bank, because complying would set a “dangerous precedent”.
“Your impugned directive to the Board not to ratify the Governor’s decisions if implemented would have catastrophic effect on the financial sector of Uganda and the economy,” Mr Mutebile wrote.
“The Bank of Uganda shall safeguard its independence and ensure that it maintains public confidence in its ability to safeguard a sound financial system free of external influence,” Mr Mutebile wrote in his no-holds- barred March 19 letter.
Mutebile termed Mulyagonja’s letter as ‘redundant’. It’s against this that president Museveni has summoned both powerful personalities for a dialogue.
