President Museveni last Friday added his voice in praising the works and contributions of the deceased former Bank of Uganda Governor, Prof Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile who passed away at Nairobi hospital.
Museveni hailed the fallen Governor for enriching the economic ideas of the then new NRM government in the 1980s, and helping put Uganda’s economy back on track.
However, the president said Mutebile made a mistake by encouraging the government to fully liberalize the economy through mass privatization of government assets and parastatals including Uganda Commercial Bank.
Although it was hoped that this would lead to reduction of interest rates, Museveni said, this has never happened to this date.
On this note, Museveni said he should have listened to Prof Ezra Suruma’s side which opposed privatizing UCB.
Prof. Ezra Suruma
The sale of UCB remains a contentious issue with liberals arguing that the move allowed more players to join the financial market, enabling government to create jobs and raise billions of shillings in tax revenues.
Others argue that the sale of the government bank left the indegenous Ugandans at the mercy of foreign banks.
Parliament prepared a report saying it was opposed to the sale of UCB as the financial institution was the largest bank in Uganda controlling 28 percent of total market deposits whose customers are spread across the country.
President Museveni paid homage to the Late Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile for his meritorious and patriotic service to this nation.
“UCB is the indegenous bank that allows customers with the lowest minimum if deposits and also has the lowest banking charges,” the Parliament select committee report reads in part.
“The original mission of UCB was to serve the African population that was largely excluded from banking services. Although the bank started in the colonial era its mission was in agreement with article 32 of the 1995 constitution which mandates the government to take affirmative action to address the interests of populations that have historically been marginalized.”
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