The Shs700bn loan saga and calls to censure Kasaija

The money was allegedly part of the $500,000 that the two officials together with Muhakanizi and Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija had solicited from some investors. President Museveni had received intelligence that Muhakanizi and Kasaija were supposed to take $ 150,000 each and the two officials $ 100,000. The idea was to net at least Muhakanizi.

Although Muhakanizi wasn’t netted, Museveni still believing his intelligence, suspected that someone had tipped off the PS/ST. And he made it a point to emphasise publicly that the Finance Ministry was “full of thieves”.

Then on April 5, 2017 at 03:45, President Museveni held another critical meeting at State House Entebbe. In attendance was Bank of Uganda Governor, Tumusiime Mutebile, Inspector General of Government Irene Mulyagonja and ISO’s Bagyenda Kaka.
According to the minutes of the meeting a copy of which The Independent has seen, Museveni informed the officials that some $38m had been stolen from government’s GAVI Fund account in the Works in Progress suspense account.

Apparently, the transfers were channeled through the Cayman Islands to an account held by Pine-Herst Holdings in CIMB Bank in Malaysia, where it was believed that the money was still being held.
After making this presentation, the President told the meeting that the details of the transfers would be got from a report by the ISO Director General.
He asked the Governor to investigate the transfers and report back on Friday, 7 April 2017 or two days later.

The governor and his team were given documents showing the alleged trail including the executive Summary of a report titled “Role of Rogue Elements in Security and Ministry of Finance in Cyber and Economic Fraud”.
The report’s author noted that in the last few months, he had been involved in; transfer of money from my employer to a foreign bank in China, a total of $38M from finance IFMS through instruction of Keith Muhakanizi.

However, on the $ 38M transfer, he said he had cleared all traces of this transaction from the system but believed that with right resources the log could be retrieved.
“This money as per the 14-03-2017 is still at CIMB Bank Malaysia,” he noted, “Attached is the statement I retrieved from a hack on Keith Muhakanizi’s laptop on the 16-03-2017.”
But when Governor Mutebile’s findings arrived on April 7 as the president had asked – there was no truth in the claims.

There was no information that the central bank had transacted any business with any counterpart by the names of CIMB Bank in Malaysia or anywhere in the world or that such significant transactions took place between BoU and the local commercial banks, Mutebile told the President.
Finance officials say the allegations against Muhakanizi and Kasaija should, therefore, be treated as unfounded, unless proven true.