BoU Scam: Is there more than meets the eye?

On 13th June, 2019, a team from the State House Anti-Corruption Unit raided Bank of Uganda after a tip off that some senior officials there had authorised printing of money notes ranging in billions of shillings.

According to reports close to Shs 90 billion could have been printed under this illegal scheme and shipped into Uganda.

Lt. Col Edith Nakalema, the head of the State House Anti - Corruption Unit would later come out in a brief statement to confirm the raid. She said that they were invited by the governor, Tumusiime Mutebile to carry out investigations regarding the procurement consignment although she restrained from revealing the details of the investigations.

Political analyst, Charles Rwomushana, while appearing on NBS Television's Morning Breeze said this is another anomaly that should not have happened.

"Who secures our currency when it comes in? Its not governor Mutebile. It should be the SFC or police because everything that comes at the airport is secured by our security and it should have been them to ask, not governor Mutebile, "Rwomushana said.

Rwomushana cautioned that by the time the governor raises an alarm, the issue is serious and the government should take interest in following it up.

The Director in charge of communications at Bank Of Uganda Charity Mugumya however refuted the claims saying Bank of Uganda officials were at the airport by the time that consignment arrived and it was these officials that raised alarm.

She said that on 27th April this year, they received a consignment at the airport and on receipt, like the norm is, they did verification and it was during this process that the staff realised that the consignment had an extra cargo which forced them to inform the governor who asked the State House Anti Corruption Unit to start an investigation into the matter.

She said that Bank Of Uganda's cargo was supposed to be 20 consignments and this was not tempered with and its safely at the Bank Of Uganda headquarters. What called for the investigation were the extra 5 consignments that came with the cargo.

Mugumya refused to reveal the "printed matter" that was in the extra consignment that is being investigated.

Sources however revealed that the extra palette contained Shs 90 billion.

She said that when the Bank Of Uganda procures currency, they normally do pre shipment verification before loading the cargo to Uganda and the Bank Of Uganda staff then leaves and wait for the order at Entebbe Airport. Its the printing company that is mandated to secure the cargo until it touches down at the airport.

"We load the cargo on a chartered plane and wait for it at Entebbe. We don't know of any stop over and they are supposed to deliver our cargo untampered with. When they arrive, we do another verification process at Entebbe and it was during this exercise that we realised that anomaly," Mugumya said.

She said that Bank of Uganda awarded a contract to the French firm to print and that the printing firm has to ensure the integrity of what is going to be printed.

Rwomushana however said that he has a different story of what happened.

He said that the plane of the printing firm was stranded at Entebbe Airport and had to call for spare parts.

He said: "The printer had a plane stranded at Entebbe Airport and therefore asked for spare parts using another plane, that's the story I have."

He noted that it is now the role of Bank Of Uganda to inform a third party to carry out investigations into the story and if true, then its bad but not terrible.

The Nile Post understands that the printing firm contracted by Bank of Uganda is M/s Oberthur Fiduciaire in France.

The money printed was 70 millions pieces of 50K notes that amounted to 350 Billion shillings and this was packed in 20 pallets before an extra 5 pallets where added into the cargo.

The cargo was supposed to be flown in a privately chartered plane (MD-IIF) courtesy of M/S KUENEL + NEGEL with flight number ASK4042/LGG - EBB/26the April 2019.

This was however changed to another plane (B747-400BCF) which brought confusion and put the Bank on the spot.