KAMPALA – A number of Central Bank top officials involved in the currency saga that rocked Bank of Uganda since last week will appear before Court today (Friday) June 21.
The two BOU officials who supervised the loading of the cargo Francis Kaketo regional manager Mbale and Fred Wanyama Assistant regional manager Kabale to be charged in court this morning, according to a top security source.
On Wednesday last week, the State House Anti-Corruption Unit and police arrested several BoU officials in charge of currency, procurement and security and officials from the Customs Department, airport police officers and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) staff. “Our key point is why and how did it (airline) carry extra cargo and for who?” Lt Col Nakalema said.
On Friday, Lt Col Edith Nakalema issued a statement saying the arrests had been carried out in liaison with CID and BoU to conduct a special investigation on the matter pertaining to the bank’s procurement and supply chain activities.
In a statement on Friday, BoU Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile said he requested the Anti-Corruption Unit of State House to investigate the matter after his staff discovered the anomaly.
A statement by Uganda Revenue Authority has since said that the 5 extra cargo pallets contained other cargo which belonged to various individuals / companies / organizations.
“As per normal customs clearance procedure, this cargo was offloaded into the licensed bonds at the airport and subsequently the owners made customs declarations, paid applicable taxes and Customs physically verified each consignment to ascertain accuracy and consistency with the declaration and released the goods to the owners,” read a statement by Dickson Kateshumbwa, the URA Customs Commissioner.
Some of the organisations/entities said to have had cargo on the said plane, include businessman Charles Mbiire and Omar Mandela’s Mandela Millers Ltd. A number of UN agencies as well as USAID, Ministry of Health and other private businesses have also been named by authorities as having had cargo on the said plane.
Uganda Radio Network (URN) a local news has Wednesday reported Criminal Investigations Department revealed to them that after investigating top BoU officials, the investigating team led by CID Director Grace Akullo found leads in three currency centres and that heads of three currency units in Mbale, Kabale and Fort Portal are being interrogated on whether they had prior knowledge on the five extra palettes that were transported on the BoU chartered plane.
