The Member of Parliament for Bugabula South Maurice Kibalya has expressed doubts about the explanations being given about the UGX500m fake bank notes that were discovered inside Post Bank branch in Mbale and the UGX62bn was stolen from Bank of Uganda.
Kibalya, who was speaking during the training of MPs of the Uganda Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flow, organized by SEATINI) Uganda, Tax Justice Network, Africa held at Onomo Hotel in Kampala, questioned why the two sagas have only been recorded amongst government financial institutions.
He said that this points to an insider scheme within government. “There is no Ugandan who can be convinced that money disappeared from the Central Bank, which has all the safety valves and all mechanisms of controlling money, protecting money and whatever it requires,” remarked Kibalya.
Kibalya further accused government of playing ping pong games with taxpayers’ money, saying “There is no Ugandan who is so stupid that can be convinced that money disappeared without a plot, move, syndicate, without a racket that involves government officials and whoever is involved.
That one can’t be. You can’t tell me that money can disappear from the Central Bank when the Governor isn’t part of the racket, when the Minister isn’t part of the racket, and when those in charge of the country aren’t part of the racket.”
“If the Ugandan currency can disappear, what of the foreign reserves we are supposed to keep in the Central Bank? If what we see can disappear, now, think about what we don’t see. It is just that Government is playing ping pong, they know what is happening.
No Ugandan is stupid to that level that they can be told, of all places where money can disappear, it can be the central Bank. Money was taken, officially, directly, but they are just hiding under the stealing,” Maurice Kibalya (Bugabula South).
Who will protect the public?
The Tororo district Woman Member of Parliament, Sarah Opendi, wondered that “If banks now have fake money, what mechanism do I have to detect fake money from the genuine money? Because we expect banks to be giving us genuine notes, now if this has been discovered in Post Bank, how sure are we that other banks haven’t been doing it?
Should we now carry currency detectors to these banks? That if I have been given money, I should use something or my phone to detect before I walk out of the bank. I am sure that very many people have received fake money and actually, it is in circulation,” asked Opendi.
MPs to take action
Moses Aleper (Chekwii County), also Vice Chairperson, Parliament’s Finance Committee revealed plans by the Committee to summon the Ministry of Finance and Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) to explain circumstances under which, accounts of Bank of Uganda were hacked, leading to the siphoning of UGX62Bn.
“We are going to summon them, especially Ministry of Finance. We are also going to summon Financial Intelligence Authority and then the Central Bank so that they give us an explanation. It is just good because we represent the people so that we have an answer whenever we meet people.
Like if you ask me now, I can’t give you an answer. So we shall call them to give us an explanation, while we wait for the report. It is just like how we do our oversight role, we don’t have to wait for the report, we shall be asking them a few questions,” said Aleper.
“The recent happening, especially at the top chain of the financial sector is actually throwing the citizens into panic and also undermining the credibility of our financial institution and definitely indicates there is a problem in the architecture and also the management.
As we advance in technology, we are living with people who are also thinking quite fast. As long as there is collusion in anything, there are no internal controls you can be make that are airtight and this is what must have happened,” explained Aleper.
