By Our Reporter
Our Spies have unearthed a plot being hatched by officials at dfcu Bank and Bank of Uganda, in which they’re allegedly planning to cook up and doctor minutes pertaining to the sale of tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia’s Crane Bank.
Crane Bank was wound up in 2016 by BoU, before it was sold to dfcu Bank but under dubious terms.
This shocking revelation was unearthed by Members of Parliament on the Committee on Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) last year, as they interrogated BoU officials about the sale of Crane Bank and other commercial banks to dfcu bank by BoU.
During her interface with COSASE MPs, Justine Bagyenda, the former BoU Director Supervision, revealed that there were no minutes pertaining to the sale of Crane Bank, and that there were no minutes to back the sale of the other six commercial banks.
The banks include; Teefe Trust Bank (1993), International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999), The Co-operative Bank (1999), National Bank of Commerce (2012), Global Trust Bank (2014).
It was established that Bank of Uganda officials led by Bagyenda and Louis Kasekende (then) simply invited dfcu to take over Crane Bank.
But we reported recently that dfcu’s majority shareholder Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) is stuck with shares it was meant to sell to Denmark’s International Development Fund (IFD), because the bosses of IFD requested dfcu to produce minutes pertaining to the sale of Crane Bank before it buys CDC’s shares.
Now our Spies reveal that since Bagyenda told Parliament that there were no minutes regarding the sale of Crane Bank, shrewd officials at the Central Bank are allegedly conspiring with dfcu Bank top management to generate nonexistent minutes for Crane Bank sale.
It should be noted that generating these minutes will see dfcu bank investors- Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) conclude the sale of its stake of 9.97% to Danish Investment Fund for Development Countries (IFD).
CDC announced in the recent past that it was selling off its shares and was ceasing to associate with dfcu, but the transaction stalled after IFD demanded to peruse minutes pertaining to the sale of Crane Bank.
Whereas CDC remained tight-lipped, it emerged that the investors were infuriated by the illegal purchase of Crane Bank, a transaction that has since turned into a boomerang of multiple problems for dfcu bank.
Following the demand by IFD for the Crane Bank sale minutes, dfcu Bank investors (CDC), the top managers and the lawyers behind the unscrupulous transaction, plus BoU officials are all stuck, hence the plot come up with cooked minutes.
Our Spies reported recently how dfcu Bank managing director Mathias Katamba had sought a meeting with his predecessor Juma Kisaame, BoU legal director Margret Kasule and the MMAKS lawyers who were the initiators of the dubious Crane Bank deal.
It’s said that Katamba asked them to sort their mess as soon as possible because dfcu Bank is likely to pay a huge price if the mess isn’t cleared early enough.
On her part, Ms Kasule, who was on leave then, pledged to begin fresh paperwork to legitimize Crane Bank sale the moment she returned to office.
It should be recalled that during a forensic audit on the Crane Bank closure and sale, in his 58 page report detailing the findings, the Auditor General (AG) John Muwanga clearly stipulated that he was never provided with minutes of Crane-dfcu Sale.
Crane Bank, which was formerly owned by Dr Sudhir , was sold by BoU to dfcu Bank on grounds of insolvency, a claim that Sudhir has since contested in Court and has so far won round one of the court battle.
This was after the commercial court declared that the sale was illegal, because BoU officials never followed the due process of winding up a company and putting it under receivership.
Similarly, as MPs from COSASE carried out their investigations, they found out that BoU couldn’t provide the files linked to Crane Bank closure, which is a shocking anomaly, given the magnitude of the matter and credibility attached to BoU.
Some of the documents that caused the MPs to chase away dfcu bank officials led by Chairman Juma Mugerwa and MD Katamba included one on “Fair valued loans and advances of customers of Crane Bank Limited (CBL). The other included schedules of CBL loans and advances.
However, matters worsened when former Chief Executive Officer of dfcu, Juma Kisaame, confirmed to COSASE that the invite for dfcu to buy Crane bank was done on phone and there are no records for that phone call, not even a call printout.
