This is a verbatim from the deputy governor at Bank of Uganda Micheal Atingi Ego. He made the remarks before journalists on the sidelines of the release of the Monetary Policy Briefing for December at the Bank of Uganda.

I want to emphasise that the fact that investigations are still ongoing and I would not like to tamper with those ongoing investigations. I’m going to give you only the facts. I’m first going to start with the amounts that were involved because there have been lots of things flying in the media.
So there’s a lot of confusion. And it’s not good particularly when you’re targeting your central bank. I want to be on the record for this and I’ll be held accountable for it.

So, I’ll start with the amount involved. There were two transactions which were relating to debt service payments. The payment transactions in question included a payment to the World Bank of $6.134 million which was instead paid to a company called Roadway Company Limited through a bank in Japan called MUFG Bank and that was on the 12th of September 2024.

And then the second transaction was meant to be a payment to the African Development Fund of $8.596 million. It was instead paid to MJS International London in the UK on the 28th September 2024.

Now on the part of Bank of Uganda upon discovering that the payments are not reached the intended beneficiaries that is the World Bank and the African Development Fund, the Bank of Uganda immediately commenced internal investigations and reported the matter to the relevant government agency and that was the Uganda police force, the criminal investigation directorate and also the Financial Intelligence Authority but beyond that the Bank of Uganda took the necessary steps to recover these funds that was really our key priority that of this fund that had been diverted how quickly can we get back these funds. So that’s what we’ve been working on.

We put all our efforts in trying to recover these funds. We instructed our correspondent bank that is Citi Bank and the banks where the funds had been credited to the accounts of the fraudsters instructing them to freeze the save funds due to the suspected fraud that had taken place.

We have since recovered $8.205 million. I repeat, we’ve recovered $8.205 million of the funds that had been sent to MJS International London, UK and these funds have been credited back to the Uganda government account here in Bank of Uganda. [It] is not frozen like the media is speculating. We are pursuing the balance of $391,000 that went to this bank in London through our correspondent bank Citi Bank.

However, Bank of Uganda has not recovered the amount paid to Roadway Company through the MUFG bank of Japan. This bank has not been very cooperative. That’s why we haven’t recovered this money. Had the bank been as cooperative as the bank in the United Kingdom, even this money should have been recovered.

So while they haven’t been cooperative, we are working hard with our domestic and international partners particularly through the Financial Intelligence Authority to pursue the recovery of these funds. And we also expect the ongoing investigations to support our recovery efforts and help us understand the full extent of these fraudulent transactions.

But more importantly, we are also cooperating with the office of the Auditor General who are conducting their independent investigations. So, forget about all this media speculation on the amount of the funds involved and who took the fund. You know, the media, you wake up with your own story and you put it there, you know, and because Ugandans are looking for such story, they’ll buy it.

But take this one from me as authoritative. And then the second question, this is even bad that the Bank of Uganda was hacked. Look, it is absolutely not correct. I repeat, it is absolutely not correct that the Bank of Uganda IT systems were hacked because hacking involves the act of gaining unauthorized access to computer systems and networks.

And I can tell you with all the confidence that there is no even whatsoever any unauthorized access to the Bank of Uganda IT systems to divert the funds that I have just told you about. These fraud incidents were initiated outside the Bank of Uganda IT systems to divert the funds. Bank of Uganda is a paying entity. You get instructions to pay and we pay as instructed. So let me repeat, the fraud incidents were initiated outside the Bank of Uganda IT systems and instructions were received by Bank of Uganda to pay the wrong beneficiaries leading to the subsequent diversion of the funds.

Now where the diversion took place, how and who were involved is a subject matter of the ongoing investigation for which I cannot comment. But be rest assured, Bank of Uganda IT systems remain fully operational. They are secure and uncompromised. Forget the nonsense out there that the BOU IT systems were hacked. That’s my message on that.

Now on the staff involvement; look whenever such a thing happens you report to the police and it’s only normal for the police to take statements from all the staff who have a relationship or who work on such matters who take part in the process of payments.

So what has happened is that we are cooperating with the relevant authorities to provide information that is needed to conclude the investigation. To the best of our knowledge, no Bank of Uganda staff has been implicated thus far. So all the rumors you see there, all these things in the social media, I mean there’s no grain of truth in it whatsoever.

Bank of Uganda has cooperated with the investigative authority and to the best of our knowledge no staff has ever been implicated nor being named in this. So maybe let me conclude on this. I’m just asking the public to remain patient and allow the relevant government pro agencies to conclude their investigations. Bank of Uganda will issue a comprehensive report. We will issue very comprehensive report on the incident once the investigations are complete.

For now, we recommend that if you want any information, you source it from the related agencies who are conducting the investigations to avoid misinformation. This idea of bashing the central bank is not good.