Bagyenda Accused of Smuggling Confidential Documents Out of BOU

The Former Executive Director for Bank Supervision at Bank of Uganda (BOU), Justine Bagyenda has been pinned for smuggling confidential documents from the headquarters of the Central Bank during the time she was transitioning from the bank.

The revelation was made on Tuesday by the Head of Security at BOU, Milton Orech Opio during the ongoing probe by Parliament into the closure of seven defunct banks.

It followed a matter of concern raised by legislators in relation to reports that certain documents and files were smuggled out of the Bank of Uganda premises.

This prompted the Committee Chairperson, Abdul Katuntu to order the security officers at the Bank to carry out a search and report back to the committee this week over the allegations.

Yesterday, the Head of Security at
BOU, Milton Orech Opio informed the committee that indeed on viewing the bank’s CCTV footage, it was established that bags of documents were sneaked out of the bank under Bagyenda’s orders on Sunday 11th February 2018.

This happened two weeks after Bagyenda had retired her position although she still occupied her office until June this year.

Orech further informed the committee that a search warrant was sought to have Bagyenda’s home searched but Bagyenda claimed she was being witch hunted and the search was abandoned since the documents were returned to the bank on February 12.

He added that three bags of documents were taken out of BOU but only two were returned. Even on returning them, Bagyenda’s personal bodyguard bleached security procedures and refused to have the bags searched, Orech said.

“Bags were carried by the driver and the personal bodyguard of Mrs Bagyenda who carried them from her office and she joined them later,” Orech said.

Katuntu noted that for the committee to make a fair conclusion, it would have to wait to hear from Bagyenda so as to make a fair ruling.

Bagyenda is under spotlight for not submitting the liquidation reports to the Governor of the Central Bank for the defunct banks including Greenland Bank, International Credit bank and Cooperative Bank.

“Isn’t it impossible that the files we are talking about are the very ones that found themselves out of the Bank? If we come to conclusion, we would be asking why one would sneak such documents out,” Katuntu said.

The Chairperson as well summoned the officers who were involved in
smuggling the said documents as well those officers who were on duty at the time.

A four member team of MPs was appointed to review the BOU security camera footage and present a report to the committees highlighting what happened at the time the documents were stolen.

The four member committee includes; Aja Baryayanga, Francis Takira, Nathan Itungo and Betty Muzanira.