The Auditor General has turned down the request from Dr Louis Kasekende, the deputy governor of bank of Uganda to carry out another audit into the Shs 478 billion that Bank of Uganda reportedly sunk into Crane Bank.
In a letter dated March 11, 2019, Kasekende wrote to John Muwanga requesting for the new audit but Muwanga said he could not because the parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) finalised its report and therefore any other audit would require the permission of Parliament.
“Regrettably, I am unable to undertake the verification since the report has been issued to the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament on February 18, 2018. Any additional verification on the already issued report can only be undertaken with the authority of parliament. We will keep the documents and wait for further communication from COSASE” reads Mr Muwanga’s letter which was copied to the Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga and the chairperson, Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).
During the probe, MPs asked for accountability of the Shs 478 billion that the central bank injected into Crane Bank.
Officials from the central bank failed to provide documents and instead said that former shareholders of Crane Bank should repay this money, given as liquid support.
But Sudhir Ruparelia one of the shareholders told the probe that they would not pay that money since they don’t know where it came from, who received and how it was used.
Muwanga carried out the audit as the ordered by COSASEon December 20, 2018.
In his report, Muwanga said out of Shs478 billion injected into CBL, a sum of Shs157.9 billion had been recovered from Dfcu Bank and CBL Non-Performing assets leaving an outstanding balance of Shs320.8 billion at the time of writing the report.
Crane Bank was sold to Dfcu Bank at Shs200 billion in 2017.
