PROFILE: Who is Juma Kisaame?

By our reporter

Juma Kisaame currently serves as the Managing Director at Dfcu Bank. He has been a prominent figure in the transaction for Crane Bank between Bank of Uganda and Dfcu. With reports that Dfcu board has asked him to renew his contract which runs out in December this year, means he will be in the news much longer given the court case businessman Sudhir Ruparelia lodged against Dfcu and Bank of Uganda with regard to former Crane Bank properties ownership and leases, as well as the Crane Bank’s closure by BoU and its eventual transfer to Dfcu.

Born in 1965, Kisaame attended Makerere University where he graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Commerce in 1988.

He started his career as a trainee accountant at the Uganda Development Bank. He was later promoted to Senior Accountant.

He joined Dfcu in 1992 as Head of Finance and held several positions including Manager Finance and Administration – Non Performing Assets Recovery Trust; Commercial Manager of Leasing; General Manager of Mortgages.

In 2002, Kisaame founded the Uganda Leasing Association and held the position of Executive Secretary until 2004. In  the same year, the month of July , he left Dfcu and joined Eurafrican Bank in Tanzania as Managing Director where he successfully turned round the bank from loss making to a sustainable profit making position.

In 2007, Kisaame returned to Dfcu Bank as the Managing Director, and has served in that role since, 11 years and still counting.

He pioneered the publication of Lease Link and Afrolease News journals which are at the forefront of advocating for leasing development in Uganda and Africa at large. Kisaame also serves as President of the African Leasing Association.

He completed an Advanced Management Program INSEAD in 2001 and attended several leasing courses by Sudhir Amembal and Euro Money from 1998 to 2006.

Since 2006, he has served as a Director on the Board of Jubilee Holdings Limited, the parent company of Jubilee Insurance.

In 2017, Bank of Uganda announced that it has transferred Crane Bank equity into Dfcu, and later in the year, Dfcu announced its biggest profit margin in history. The bank was also propelled to number two in Uganda. However the successes soon turned sour with former Crane Bank managers challenged the sale. The recent Auditor General report on defunct banks in the country has put Kisaame’s name in a rather compromising position as he is said to have taken a central role in the negotiations for Crane Bank. It later emerged that Dfcu actually set the value for Crane Bank and has actually not paid even for that valuation, yet Dfcu is already enjoying the profits of the acquisition.