Senior officials from the Bank of Uganda led by the Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende produced documents revealing the amount of money the Central Bank spent on procuring legal services as had earlier been directed by the Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises. The documents also included the expenses the bank had so far incurred in the case it brought against Sudhir Ruparelia regarding the defunct Crane bank. The documents however came with an attached letter requesting the Committee to treat them as confidential with fear that the figures might have an implication on the case in Court. “We hold the view that it will be in the interest of all stakeholders to avoid public disclosure at this stage that could affect the outcome of the Court case.” Said, Abdu Katuntu – Committee Chairperson, COSASE.

But a source who reviewed the documents revealed to NTV that Bank of Uganda had so far spent 4.5 billion on the Sudhir Ruparelia case. However, the 4.5 billion did not include money paid to the law firms of Max Advocates and AF Mpanga Advocates which represent Bank of Uganda in the High Court. On October 25th 2016, Bank of Uganda took over the management of Crane bank and suspended all members of its board saying the bank was grossly undercapitalized. The Central bank then transferred Crane bank assets and liabilities and sold them to DFCU bank before filing a suit against Sudhir Ruparelia and his meera investment seeking to recover about 400 billion shillings from Ruparelia together with three-hold titles of Crane’s bank branches, general damages, interests, and costs. However, in the document presented before the Committee, the bank of Uganda did not give details on how the 4.5 billion shillings had been spent. This prompted the Committee to form a Sub-Committee to investigate the expenditure. “We have submitted them to a smaller Committee which is analyzing and then we shall invite them at a later time after the analysis to ask for their clarifications on the issues that we think are pertinent.”

The Committee’s Chairperson Abdu Katuntu was further asked to write to the Inspector General of Government requesting another audit on how Bank of Uganda had been selling off defunct banks such Global Trust Bank and the National Bank of Commerce among others. “Because we have realized that Bank of Uganda has never accounted to any institution about that process of liquidation. And then these are public institutions, these institutions had a lot of securities which were liquidated. The cost of liquidation seems to be so astronomical.” The audit report was expected before the Committee in 90 days.