By Ivan Mubiru
Bank of Uganda deputy governor, Louis Austin Kasekende listed his source of wealth to gratuity payments from the Central Bank, African Development Bank and the World Bank.
More of his wealth was acquired through savings from research grants, salary and, travel allowances, mutually agreed separation allowance from AfDB, pension BoU and AfDB as well as a disturbance allowance by Bank of Uganda.
Kasekende, together with his boss, Tumusiime Mutebile and 98 other bank officials are under investigation by the Inspector General of Government (IGG) Irene Mulyagonja over corruption, abuse of office and alleged illicit accumulation of wealth.
The IGG’s investigation may have been sparked off a confidential Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) report regarding the suspicious wealth of former Central Bank Director in charge of Supervision Justine Bagyenda.
Last year, Denis Nyombi, a lawyer petitioned the IGG, asking for investigations into the wealth of Bagyenda and other BoU officials.
He claimed then that he was privy to information that Bagyenda had under declared her assets and liabilities to the IGG, contrary the Leadership Code Act, 2002.
According to a declaration of income, assets and liabilities form under Leadership Code Act 2002, seen by Watchdog Uganda, Kasekende reportedly earns a salary of Shs559,848,000 per year and an allowance Shs162m. This translates into Shs46million per month and an allowance of Shs13million.
On the same declaration form, Kasekende, who was reappointed deputy governor on January 18, 2015, also lists rental income as another source of wealth, citing five properties in upscale Gaba, Lubowa, Ntinda, Naguru and Kololo valued at Shs2.1b, Shs1.4b, Shs0.39b, Shs1.3b and Shs2b. These, he declares, bring in a monthly fee of USD13,233 (Shs52m).
His money is stashed in four accounts, (Three jointly owned with Edith and Andrew Kasekende) including Bank Fund Staff Federal Credit Union, Washington, DC.
A residential house worth Shs0.5b as well as a farm valued at Shs500m and Greenhill Academy (jointly owned with Edith Kasekende) are some of the other properties declared.
The IGG Spokesperson Munira Ali confirmed the verification exercise conducted within the confines of the Leadership Code Act and indicated that the IGG was validating income, assets and liabilities for Kasekende and other officials.
“We can investigate BoU because it’s a public office. The IGG investigates procedures, especially administrative not technical, we conduct verification of the leaders’ declarations whenever they declare. Our target every year is to verify 100 public officials. This time round we have some BoU officials whose declaration is being verified and they are aware because we informed them,” Ms. Ali is quoted by newspaper Daily Monitor, on Thursday.
This is not the first time Kasekende has come under fire.
Last month, Theodore Ssekikubo, the Lwemiyaga County legislator urged Parliament and President Museveni to fire Kasekende for ‘messing up the banking sector,’ following a report Auditor General Mr. John Muwanga.
The Special Audit Report of Bank of Uganda on Closed Commercial Banks presented to former Cosase chairman Abdu Katuntu exposed several gaps in the way the Central Bank had mismanaged sale of seven private banks between 1993 and 2017.
The banks in question are Teefe Bank, International Credit Bank Limited (ICBL), Greenland Bank, The Cooperative Bank, National Bank of Commerce (NBC), Global Trust Bank (GTB) and more recently Crane Bank which was swallowed up by dfcu.
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