Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Hon. Jacob Oulanyah has come out to defend himself following allegations that he tried to block the audit and investigation into the operations of Bank of Uganda (BoU).
After Speaker Rebecca Kadaga ordered the Auditor General’s office to carry out a forensic audit in BoU over the sale of several commercial banks including Crane Bank, some MPs scoffed at Oulanyah for having tried to block the probe citing sub judice since there are pending court cases involving the central bank and other banks.
Before Kadaga giving a green light to the probe, MPs led by Budadiri West’s Nathan Nandala Mafabi had moved a motion to investigate what they termed as the controversial closure of Crane Bank, but Oulanyah poured cold water on the debate saying the matter could not be brought on the floor of Parliament because there were pending court cases.
“The motion was presented and debate started. The main thing came from a letter from lawyers that there are five cases filed in court on the same facts as contained in the motion and they raised the issue of sub judice under our rule 72. We could not continue debating the matter because they could prejudice the proceedings in court,” he said.
Oulanyah however says that stopping the debate did not tantamount to trying to stop the audit and said his action was not contradicted by the Speaker as the media reported.
“My ruling was captured by the Speaker but the headlines continue to say the speaker overruled the deputy speaker. That is misleading,” Oulanyah said.
He said he has no problem with the audit of Bank of Uganda like the speaker, Rebecca Kadaga had guided.
The Auditor General recently kicked off audit into Bank of Uganda looking for irregularities in the way several banks were sold off. BoU Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende had tried to block the audit citing sub judice as the Crane Bank matter was before court, but Kadaga ruled that any government body can be subjected to an audit.