By our reporter
The Governor Bank of Uganda(BoU) Prof Emmanuel Mutebile on Tuesday dodged a summon by Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authority and State Enterprise (COSASE) as Central Bank officials were grilled over excess spending on external lawyers.
Mutebile was instead represented by his deputy Louis Kasekende who also led the BoU team.
The committee Chairperson, Abdul Katuntu said the decision to summon Bank of Uganda officials was arrived at after noticing that government was losing a lot of money to pay off private lawyers and yet the institution is facilitated by well-paid lawyers.
It was revealed that the Central Bank paid out Shs61Million in 2013/2014 and in the next financial year, the bank went on and give external lawyers Shs681M in 2014/15 and in 2016/2017, Shs398M was reported to have been spent by June 2017.
The Committee was further interested in the details of payment to help it in policy recommendations adding that the company lawyers might be incompetent hence the need to hire private lawyers.
However, Kasekende denied claims that the Central Bank’s nine member legal team was incompetent saying initially, the department was only made up of five lawyers, but due to the huge work load, the number had to be increased.
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