KAMPALA – The Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda defended his son, Kwame Rugunda after his name popped up on the floor of Parliament as one of the Ugandans running cryptocurrency schemes that saw Ugandans lose billions in the scheme.
The Prime Minister made the emotion defense during the plenary sitting where he told Parliament that although his son, Kwame is one of the people engaged in cryptocurrency, there haven’t been any cases of fraud committed by the company.
Rugunda said, “Whereas it is true that my son Kwame is involved in the promotion of some of the new technologies within the fourth industrial revolution, such as blockchain technology, it is false that his business is associated in any way with Ponzi schemes.”
It should be recalled that last week, when the Minister of State for Planning, David Bahati tabled a statement in response to concerns that Ugandans were losing money in digital financial schemes, some MPs blamed the Ministry for the laxity at dealing with the matter noting that some of the people running the fraudulent schemes are members of the cabinet.
One of the people cites was Kwame Rugunda, son to Prime Minister running Crypto Savannah, but his father defended him and admitted that Uganda does not yet have a legal framework for cryptocurrencies, and revealed that the responsible agencies of Government are closely studying them and are also studying the legal regimes being adopted by other countries.
The Prime Minister said, “We encourage responsible agencies of Government to provide greater public awareness about these and other new technologies to avoid this mix up as we saw in the House.”
Rugunda said that Cryptocurrencies and Ponzi schemes are two different issues but the ongoing debate doesn’t distinguish them, presenting them as related and that the mix up is a result of Ponzi schemes referring to themselves as cryptocurrencies, in an attempt to lure people to defraud them.
“This has caused society to think that Ponzi scheme and cryptocurrencies are related and yet they are different. Some Ponzi schemes may use case or may use gold or may use cryptocurrencies but their underlying motive is to defraud society which is a crime punishable by law,” said Rugunda.
He said that the Taskforce headed by former Minister of ICT, John Nasasira is currently developing a strategy for Uganda to harness the 4th Industrial revolution and is considering various global trends with a focus on developments and aspirations for Uganda and the East African region.
The Prime Minister added that the National Taskforce on the 4th Industrial Revolution was launched by the President in April 2019 with the aim of proposing policy options to enable Government to harness the new technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution, which include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Robotics, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing Drones among others.