Saturday, June 29, 2019

Currency saga: charged BoU officials out of office

The three Bank of Uganda employees charged in the Anti-Corruption court over a procurement scandal, have taken leave from office in line with the public service rules that require a public servant to step aside, in the face of an investigation.

The three officials are Francis Kakeeto, the assistant currency director Bank of Uganda (BoU) Mbale branch, Fred Vito Wanyama, the verification officer and the currency director, Charles Malinga Akol.  

They were charged over extra cargo that was loaded onto the chartered currency plane for BOU from Paris in April this year. BoU governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile said the investigation was in relation to a consignment that the central bank received on April 27, 2019.
 
BoU only knew 20 pallets that had 70 million pieces of 5,000 bill note. On Tuesday, the officials were charged with abuse of office and corruption were granted bail up to August 2, 2019, when they will return to the Anti-Corruption court for the hearing of their case.

Charity Mugumya, the BoU spokesperson, has said that the trio is not in office. Another official at BoU said that in general, the institution follows public service rules that call for interdiction of the officials in question. The official added the three officials have not appeared at the office from Wednesday this week. 

According to the standing orders of Public Service, charges against an officer are investigated expeditiously and concluded. It adds that where an officer is interdicted, the responsible officer shall ensure that the investigation is done expeditiously in any case within 3 months. 

Mary Katarikawe, the BoU operations director told reporters last week that the central bank wants to know what exactly was contained in the extra cargo and how it got into a full charter plane, putting the genuine BoU cargo at risk.

Oberthur Fiduciare, the company contracted by Bank of Uganda to print Ugandan currency, has reportedly offered to compensate the central bank for the extra pallets that were irregularly loaded onto the chartered currency plane.    

Source
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