The Butambala county lawmaker Muwanga Kivumbi has lashed out at Bank of Uganda’s Executive Director, Banking Supervision Tumubweine Twinemanzi for saying that they failed to get any Muslim in Uganda who has qualifications to sit on the Shari’ah Advisory Council.
The Shari’ah Advisory Council is one of the major requirements needed for the operationalization of Islamic Banking in Uganda.
The furious legislator cautioned Mr Twinemanzi not to fuel religious sentiments in Uganda as far as service delivery and appointment of people at the Central Bank are concerned.
It all started when Muwanga Kivumbi tasked Bank of Uganda officials appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development on Tuesday to provide Parliament with evidence of consultations it made with Prince Kassim Nakibinge, Uganda Muslim Supreme Council and Islamic University in Uganda to propose some names to the board, and blamed the failure of Bank of Uganda to find qualified members to the Advisory council on lack of depth and strategic niche in Islam.
In response, Mr Twinemanzi explained, “If you are going to advise an existing supervisor, your standards or level of experience must be above that which the supervisor already has. We went and had discussions with various groups within the Muslim community, trying to find these people internally, what we have noticed is that we have very many people with knowledge and experience in Shariah law, actually, we do have PhDs in Islamic Financing in this country, and some have been teaching Islamic financing for close to a decade, but when you ask them if they have experience in financial services in this country, the answer is no.”
He also added that Muslims have many sects and awarding one sect may may not go well with others.
However, Mr Twinemanzi’s statement sparked fury, with the MP protesting his proposal to reverse the establishment of the Shari’ah Advisory Council to operationalise Islamic Banking in Uganda due to claims that no Muslim in Uganda has expertise to sit on the council.
However, Muwanga Kivumbi said that Twinemanzi didn’t do due diligence regarding the whole matter.
“In all honesty, that is a very weak reason. The regulations you cite, are set by you, they aren’t statutory. When we give you an act to implement, you have a duty to frame a regulation that implements the act as is, but not to fail it. I don’t think you have looked around carefully and ascertained that there are no Muslim scholars that qualify, have you advertised and therefore flouted it around?” he asked.
He al also rejected Twinemanzi’s statement that naming some Muslims to the board will anger others, due to the numerous sects within Islam. Muwanga Kivumbi pointed out that Christianity too as a religion has divisions, but this hasn’t stopped the Government from implementing some Christian values in Uganda.
“You can’t incite religious sects, here in Uganda we have Tabliqs known, but we all read the Quran, and we all interpret hadith, two documents which guide Muslims, the rest are simply administrative challenges. So don’t dig into the deep faith for all intent isn’t well-intentioned,” said Muwanga.
The MP representing People With Disability (PWD) Mpindi Bumali also advised the Central Bank officials that experience is got through working.
“So in the event that we got people who don’t have these qualifications yet we want the advisory council, for all these years that this act has been here wouldn’t you find it important for them to train those people so that they gain the experience that they want?”
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