Nakaseke South Member of Parliament Paulson Luttamaguzi Ssemakula has said that the government should expedite the compensation of city tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia for all the losses he incurred in the wrongful closure of his bank Crane bank Ltd.
Luttamagazi made remarks while appearing on Buganda’s CBS radio talkshow on Monday night, Mr. Lutamaguzi, a member of Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, State Enterprises and Statutory Authorities that extensively investigated the closure of seven commercial banks including Crane Bank, said the fact that Mr. Ruparelia has consistently won all the court battles shows that the more the government delays to sort the matter, the bigger the liability in costs.
He also called for the complete overhaul of the entire bank of Uganda saying that if the same people are still in office no fruitful investigations will ever be conducted on its operations saying that whoever that tries to investigate it including parliament is bribed and cases die.
Earlier today, city Lawyer Isaac Ssemakadde of the Center for Legal Trust on the other hand also noted that Bank of Uganda and its legal advisors are wrongly interpreting the financial institutions Act by rushing to illegally liquidate Crane Bank.
He says already there are two court rulings from the High Court commercial division and the Court of Appeal which all pin Bank of Uganda for wrongly interpreting the financial institutions Act and misusing the Act while managing the banking institutions in the country.
He further says that apart from the two courts, parliament of Uganda also investigated the bank of Uganda on the closure of 7 banks where Crane bank was the last victim and its findings are clear and pointing at the Central bank for illegally closing these local banks.
He noted that in the last court decisions, there were loopholes on the receivership of Crane bank by bank of Uganda after it sent a statutory manager to manage the bank and make a report but did not wait for him to submit his findings because officials in Bank of Uganda used police to seize Crane bank while Katimbo was upcountry and they took away crucial documents including land titles some of which have since gone missing.
The human rights lawyer noted that from there, BoU chased away Mr Katimbo and the first thing they did was to sale the bank at a sweetheart price to dfcu bank.
According to Ssemakadde, the law can give some individuals in institutions powers but explains those individuals can instead use the law to enrich themselves like using it to undermine orders among others.
He says that Dr Sudhir Ruparelia refused the misuse of the law and decided to seek court redress and has been registering court victories on different occasions .He added that after the recent one the businessman decided to go to the registrar of companies to seek for re-ownership of his bank which was illegally taken over by the central bank.
Ssemakadde notes that the actions of Bank of Uganda to rush to liquidate Crane bank out of fear and panic without waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court is an act of contempt and disrespect of courts.
