Fresh storm at BoU

A source in intelligence told The Independent that State House heard already learnt about these incidents and was not amused.

Part of the reason there are suspicions of sabotage is that since the Governor made a staff reshuffle on Feb.7, there has been a cold war between two camps. Some of those opposed to the new team have been trying to expose them as incompetent or sabotage them, insiders say.

Meanwhile, the new team, which is keen to be confirmed, has been going out of its way to expose the rot left behind by the old team. An official jokingly told The Independent that the bank had become some sort of “theatre of war”.

Amidst all this, a new controversial recruitment process, has stirred another storm.

 Creating new problems

Isaac Bonny Teko, the deputy legal counsel, in a scathing memo to the Chairperson Interviewing Committee, Richard Mayebo, raised concerns about the interviews held on July 27 at the level 7 Boardroom.

The interviews were meant for the bank to hire a legal clerk. In Teko’s view, while all candidates had performed excellently well, one of them stood out. Yet one of the interviewers gave him a very poor and highly suspicious score.

“I have conscientiously decided to withdraw my signature from the interview results for legal Clerks,” Teko wrote, “I don’t want to be party to an overt injury to an innocent person. We keep creating new problems from the debris of old problems. We have postponed taking courageous steps to restore honor to our systems.”

It was not just Teko. Another panelist refused to append his signature on what he described as an “embarrassment”. As The Independent went to press, BoU’s internal audit department was already investigating the matter.

Yet this is not all. Another controversy has emerged over another recruitment process. The bank was recruiting for 13 positions in the currency department. In an October 20 memo, Jan Tibamwenda, the Director HR advertised the jobs internally. When the list of the shortlisted candidates emerged this July, it nearly sparked a revolt.

Of the 23 shortlisted candidates, 8 have been security officers and over four have been serving as secretaries at the bank. The minimum rank for these positions was Banking Officer II (BOII) and two years of experience at the bank. However, on Oct.24, the Executive Director Administration, Solomon Oketcho, opened the process to support staff, who had the requisite qualifications, under an arrangement called conversion.

The bank’s policy for conversion notes that support staff can only be converted to BOII. The advertised jobs were at the level of Senior Banking Officer II (SBOII), which is a higher rank.

“How can you convert a security guard/note examiner/office attendant/secretary to handle work they have never handled before in such a sensitive department?” wondered one official at BoU, “How can senior secretaries compete with security guards for the same jobs? Some of the senior secretaries even have second degrees.”

Questions also emerged about why senior secretaries earning over Shs. 10 million were applying for jobs where the salary is Shs. 5 million. Concerns emerged that once the secretaries got these jobs, they would maintain their salaries.

As a result, they would be earning much more than most of their bosses. Despite concerns both Kasekende and Oketcho approved the process. Offended officials petitioned the bank’s internal audit office and the Governor. By press time, The Independent learnt that the internal audit office had punched holes in the process. The Governor was also expected to follow suit.

This particular recruitment process exposes a major crisis at the Bank. A former BoU official, who has since retired from the bank told The Independent that in the past, BoU always recruited 20 staff every year, who would enter the bank at the lowest rank. This was meant to ensure that whoever the bank recruited started from scratch and acquired requisite experience as they went up in ranks. This system always ensured that the bank had a solid foundation of staff and also offered continuity and a proper succession mechanism. However, along the way, this mechanism was abandoned and the chaos started.

The chaos is not just with in the bank, those in charge have spread it to the newly established Deposit Protection Fund. This is a fund to which commercial banks contribute one percent of customers’ deposits. As its name suggests, the fund is insurance for customer deposits should a bank fold. As of June 2017, the fund was valued at Shs. 460bn. While it has always been part of BoU, recently, the bank’s management took a decision to have it managed independently. The fund is still housed at BoU but now has separate management headed by Julia Clare Olima Oyet.

Because it is still new, BoU seconded its staff to occupy some of the positions at the fund before a formal process of recruiting staff for it starts.

“This is to inform you that after consultations with the respective Heads of Department and Directorates as well as the Deputy Governor, the following staff members have been identified for secondment to the DPF,” EDA Oketcho wrote to Governor Mutebile on Jan. 13.

Following this, BoU has since seconded some eleven staff to DPF. However, officials flouted the laws guiding secondment.

According to the Bank’s policy on secondment, only employees at the rank of Principal Banking Officer (PBO) may be available for secondment. However four of those seconded were below the rank of PBO. One particular one skipped two ranks to become PBO.

All the others except one were promoted contrary to the law. And as a result, their salaries increased. Again, BoU policy notes that during secondment, the salary and all the benefits of the concerned staff shall be frozen. But all the seconded staff have benefited from salary increments.

This development has sparked intense anger at the Bank amongst staff. To make matters worse, because some the beneficiaries lack the requisite skills for the jobs they have been assigned, insiders claim.

As already noted, this is not the first time botched up recruitments are happening at BoU.

Mid-last year, staff raised concerns about several appointments and petitioned Mutebile and the board of directors. While the board, which had participated in interviewing these appointees, ignored the complaints, Mutebile paid attention, ordered an investigation and on the basis of its conclusions, cancelled the appointments.