Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) has summoned Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, to answer queries about what led to the closure of National Bank of Commerce (NBC).
Also summoned are Central Bank Governor Tumusiime Mutebile, former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, and businessman Amos Nzeyi.
Commencing the probe into the closure of seven now defunct banks by Bank of Uganda on Friday, the committee chairperson Abdu Katuntu called all former shareholders in all banking institutions closed accordingly, to testify on how BoU came in and closed their banks.
Rugunda, Nzeyi, Mbabazi and Mutebile are needed by Cosase since they were the former shareholders of NBC which was closed in 2012. Their hearing will commence next week, together with stake holders of Teefe Bank and Nile River Acquisition Company (NRAC).
NRAC is now non-operational, however it is the firm that bought up the assets and liabilities of International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999) and the Co-operative Bank (1999).
According to Auditor General’s report, this firm spent Shs135b on loan portfolio of which Shs34.5b were valid loans.
The committee will also meet shareholders of DFCU (a bank which bought off all the assets and liabilities of Crane Bank and Global Trust Bank), International Credit Bank (ICB), Crane Bank, Cooperative Bank and BoU board of directors with technocrats from Finance ministry.
In the meeting above officials from Bank of Uganda will also react on the testimonies given by the former director of Supervision for Commercial bank Justine Bagyenda on the closure of banks last year in December.
Lawyers from MMAKS Advocates led by Timothy Masembe Kanyerezi have also been summoned by the committee to explain among others whether BoU hired them as transaction advisers in the disputed Crane Bank takeover and how much BoU paid them as legal fees for several cases involving the closed banks.
However, the committee still wants BoU to explain why they preferred to use external lawyers yet they had their own legal team. BoU sold Crane Bank to dfcu in January 2017 at Shs200 billion.
The committee has only a month to wind up the investigations and handover the report to the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga.
