Bank of Uganda braces for double transition as Kasekende, Mutebile set to leave

October 8, 2019 in Business, Markets, Policy by Editor

Prof. Mutebile said lower interest rates will help reduce the output gap in the economy despite relatively low levels of inflation.

Uganda’s central banker, the Bank of Uganda, is set to go through a rapid transition at the top as the contracts of  the Governor and  his deputy taper off in quick succession over the next fourteen months.

256BN has learned that Deputy Governor Dr. Louis Kasekende’s tenure at the bank is set to end when his contract expires in January 2020. He will be followed  months later by Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile whose contract is also scheduled to end in December 2020.

Although he is eligible for automatic renewal, Dr. Kasekende is understood to have lost interest in the job following a series of scandals that have rocked the bank in recent months.

Sources say Kasekende is exasperated by the erosion of values among the bank’s crop of young cadres that have engaged in acts that have cast the institution in a bad light. Several employees at the Mbale Currency Centre were recently arrested after they were found in possession of billions of shillings in decommissioned currency notes that were supposed to be incinerated.  Earlier, the bank was embroiled in another scandal when employees sent to supervise the printing of currency, allowed unauthorised cargo on the ferry flight to Entebbe. That led to suspicion that surplus  currency had been printed over and above the official order.

“The Deputy Governor is simply fed up with the poor ethic of the young crop of bank employees and he simply wants out,” a source said.

It is not known how his departure will impact the bank for which he has been the defacto decision maker. Mutebile was stopped from making any major decisions for the bank two years ago on doctors advice. He is not expected to seek renewal of his contract on expiry in December 2020.