Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) has Monday morning started its interaction with the various shareholders of the seven defunct banks which were closed by the Central Bank, beginning with those from National Bank of Commerce.
Since November 2018, COSASE headed by Bugweri County MP, Abdu Katuntu has been probing Bank of Uganda following the Special Audit Report by the Auditor General on the closure of the seven commercial banks.
The committee has since been interacting with different stakeholders including the officials from BOU. On Monday, the committee began its final leg of week-long hearings that will interviews shareholders of the affected banks.
The defunct commercial banks include; Teefe Bank (1993), International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999), The Co-operative Bank (1999), National Bank of Commerce (2012), Global Trust Bank (2014) and Crane Bank Ltd (CBL).
Today, the committe is meeting shareholders of National Bank of Commerce, Teefe Bank, Nile River and SIL Investments Limited.
Nile River is the company that bought the assets and liabilities of International Credit Bank Ltd, the Co-operative Bank and Greenland Bank. The loan portfolio of the 3 banks was over 130bn but BoU sold them at Shs8bn which is 93% discount.
Nile River later handed over the 3 banks to SIL Investments Limited.
The former Prime Minister, John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, Prof George Wilson Kanyeihamba, businessman Amos Nzeyi and the former NBC Board Chairman, Mathew Rukikaire among others have appeared as stakeholders of National Bank of Commerce.
The National Bank of Commerce was closed by Bank of Uganda in September, 2012 for having been undercapitalised and it was later sold to Crane Bank Limited.
In his opening remarks, the outgoing Chairman of COSASE, Abdu Katuntu noted that by February 22, the committee will have finished its report and hand it over to Parliament.
He said that the committee will interface with stakeholders for only one week and will be enough for them to file a required report to the House.
Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga recently extended the tenure of the leadership of COSASE to allow them time finalize with the probe.
Kadaga’s decision followed designation of new members to all the standing committees among which is COSASE.
On COSASE, Katuntu will be replaced with Mubarak Munyagwa as Chairperson.
