July 31, 2001
The revelations by former Greenland Bank Managing Director Suleiman Kiggundu are shocking.
In short, Kiggundu claimed that President Yoweri Museveni, Bank of Uganda officials including the late Governor Charles Kikonyongo, the whole Ministry of Finance beginning with then Finance minister Jehoash Mayanja, then Attorney General Bert Katureebe, Museveni's younger brother Maj. Gen. Salim Saleh and his son Lt. Kainerugaba Muhoozi, and the Privatisation Unit discussed at length the controversial sale of Uganda Commercial Bank in an underhand way to the Malaysian firm Westmont.
That all these people in effect agree to a deal that was all but a looting of the country's largest bank, and plotted to hide the facts from the owners of the bank - the Ugandan people.
When the scandal was blowing over, and donors were getting angry, Maj. Gen. Saleh stepped forward to take the blame personally in order to deflect the blame from the government; and Kiggundu became the sacrificial lamb.
Even if only one tenth of what Kiggundu alleged is true, it raises very troubling about the government's moral right to govern. In addition, it shows that the reason official corruption remains pervasive, is that there is no serious commitment at the top to deal with, and in fact some of the most powerful leaders in the country privately condone it.
Minister of State Matthew Rukikaire resigned from government because he didn't live with the lie any more, and Katureebe's conscience is also reported to have caught up with him, as he felt that one could no longer be an Attorney General of Uganda without being a first class crook.
For all this, the UCB scam represents just the tip of the iceberg of the rot that went on in regard to its privatization, and other sales of public enterprises. It seems we are not too far away from the Dracula being in charge of the Uganda blood bank (Treasury) in Uganda. All democrats and people of goodwill must wake up and reclaim the country from the ruin of corruption.
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