President Yoweri Museveni has said that there is ‘Kawukumi’ (bean weevils) that is eating up Bank of Uganda which must be wiped out.
Museveni said that there are corrupt officers at Emmanuel Mutebile’s Central Bank. He said this while speaking at the National Anti-corruption dialogue at Imperial Royale Kampala on Tuesday.
Museveni refuted concerns that corruption is being fueled by poor remuneration of staff saying that some of the highly paid officials in government agencies are the most corrupt.
“Of course there has also been a problem of remuneration, but remuneration cannot replace integrity, because even where there is a problem [of corruption], people are well remunerated. Look at URA, they get very good salaries, so why would you have corrupt people there? Look at Bank of Uganda, there is now corruption there, so gradually there is Kawukumi. So remuneration is not a cure; the cure is patriotism first,” Museveni said.
Museveni’s concerns come at the helm of the ongoing probe where the parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) is investigating the controversial circumstances under which BoU closed and sold 7 defunct banks. This was after the Auditor General in his report said that the Banks were fraudulently closed.
The banks include; Teefe Bank (1993), International Credit Bank Ltd (1998), Greenland Bank (1999), The Co-operative Bank (1999), National Bank of Commerce (2012), Global Trust Bank (2014) and the sale of Crane Bank Ltd (CBL) to dfcu (2016) at Shs200bn.
