The Governor Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile has told Parliament that the Central Bank has no plans of ever reopening any of the seven defunct Banks including the recent case of Crane Bank Ltd.
Mutebile made the remarks while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) that is currently carrying on a probe into the closure of the seven defunct commercial banks.
The Governor’s statement on never to open any defunct bank came as a response to the a question raised by the Aruu County MP, Odonga Otto who asked Mutebile if the Central Bank had plans of reopening Teefe Bank, having discovered that the closure of the bank was irregular and illegal under the Financial Institutions Statute.
In his response, Mutebile noted that he had no plans of ever reopening a bank that was closed by Bank of Uganda.
“In principle, I would never dream of opening a bank that I closed before,” Mutebile said.
Although Mutebile didn’t point out Crane Bank Ltd in particular, it should be noted that Crane Bank is the recently closed bank and it is its closure that prompted the current probe.
In the Auditor General’s report of the special audit, he cited a number of irregularities that characterized the closure of the banks in question.
Earlier on Thursday, Bank of Uganda withdrew all its earlier submissions made to COSASE noting that the statements had mistakes which they corrected in the new documents that they presented before the committee today.
The Governor noted that Bank of Uganda has no intention of hiding any information from the committee and has thus furnished the Members with the confidential reports and documents that they had earlier feared to avail due to their confidential nature.
“We don’t want to confuse anybody. This is now the formal report because it tallies with the Auditor General’s Report. We will be accountable as you demand and this is definitely in line with our core values. We have no intentions of stalling this process and hiding information that you may need,” Mutebile said.
The officials as well availed the missing inventory report of Teefe Bank that they had earlier told the committee was never recorded during the time of closure.
