Mutebile faces revolt in BoU

KAMPALA.

Central Bank governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile is facing revolt from a group of Bank of Uganda (BoU) staff.
They have petitioned several authorities calling for his exit.
Whereas the immediate source of trouble is a recent staff reshuffle that Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile made within BoU, unnamed workers of BoU have pointed to what they call deeper problems regarding the management of the Central Bank.
On February 8, just a day after Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile announced the reshuffle within BoU, the group of workers petitioned the Board of BoU, the Inspector General of Government (IGG) and the parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase).
The petition reads: “The above changes were done outside the approved BoU HR policy and are influenced by a clique of people who claim to be working for State House to “clean up” the institution. Such irregularities have been happening for some time now and have caused a lot of demotivation and demoralisation of staff based on tribal and sectarian grounds. Staff productivity is at an all-time low and staff are leaving (sic) under fear and uncertainty.”
The petitioners further charged that the governor “is no longer in touch with the day-to-day activities of the bank and depends on a dubious clique to make such irregular, discriminatory and bizarre decisions since he does not know most of the staff and also does not consult the respective executive directors.”

Battle with Bagyenda
“It is high time that the governor be relieved of his duties before he takes the bank down the drain where it is clearly headed,” the petition says.
Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile, who is serving an unprecedented fourth five-year term as governor of BoU, was first appointed in 2001 and reappointed in 2006, 2011, and 2016.
The calls for his exit coming with only three years left on his current term points to a possible deepening of infighting at a place from where very little information has ordinarily filtered through to the public in recent years.
The rubble-rousing reshuffle last month saw Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile moving around a number of senior staff, bringing in a few from outside the bank and, most notably, ordering Ms Justine Bagyenda, the executive director of banks supervision, to retire “with immediate effect”.
Ms Bagyenda, who clocks BoU’s mandatory retirement age of 60 in July, was on leave when the changes were made.
On February 19, she wrote back to the governor rejecting his orders for her to hand over office.
She said she would be back in office after her annual leave expired on February 25.
Ms Bagyenda, according to Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile’s directive, was to be replaced by Dr Tumubweine Twinemanzi, who according to his profile has no prior experience in banking.
A son of former State minister of Privatisation Ephraim Manzi Tumubweine, Dr Twinemanzi has been working as director of industry affairs and content (economic affairs) at Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
Reacting to the development, Ms Bagyenda wrote: “You will recall, governor, that according to my terms of employment at the Bank of Uganda, I am a permanent and pensionable employee and my retirement date is July 30, 2018 – a date on which I will attain the BoU mandatory retirement age of 60 years. I, therefore, undertake to hand over the office of the executive director-supervision by my retirement age.”

Petition to Parliament
“In the meantime, by copy of this memo, I expect EDA [executive director-administration] to respect the bank policy on the retirement of the bank’s employees, who are on permanent and pensionable terms as he implements governor’s directive stated in the memo under reference.”
What was apparent in Ms Bagyenda’s letter is the thinking that the governor had not followed the rules while suspending her, something the writers of the petition referred to earlier also accused Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile of.
The petition to the IGG, Parliament and the BoU Board leveled more accusations against Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile, including the charge that he appointed directors to two departments – medical and procurement – that happen to have the existing directors. He was also accused of demoting Ms Angela Kasirye from deputy director to assistant director “without any justification”.
The petition adds: “BoU management gave soft landing of resignation instead of termination to the caucus leader Mrs Winnie Rumanzi after an investigation into staff academic papers found she stopped in senior four yet had risen to a senior officer position using forged degree papers.”
The petitioners further charge that in Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile’s changes, six new staff from outside BoU were appointed without doing interviews “despite the memo [announcing the changes] referring to the changes as staff rotation”.
The other accusation the petitioners raise is that the changes included five positions that don’t exist on the approved BoU structure.
The positions, the petition says, are for executive director of petroleum development fund; director of medical administration; director of financial markets development coordination; director advisor IT BAUD; and procurement assurance manager at director level.
The petitioners argued that Mr Tumusiime-Mutebile had “rushed” to make the staff movements “to take advantage of the nonexistence of the board that is yet to be inaugurated.”
Ms Charity Mugumya, the BOU spokesperson, who said was in a meeting when we contacted her by telephone, said she would respond to our questions regarding to this story by email, but we were not able to achieve it by press time.