Prime
And who will be the next BoU governor?
What you need to know:
- An appointment to the BoU board is nearly a papal appointment. It comes with a lot of privileges, least to say lifetime healthcare. Ask the current Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister and member of the Board the biggest lapel pin in his wardrobe, it’s the medical coverage.
It must have been about nine o’clock in the morning in my private office at Hampden Park very close to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, one of my alma mater. The call had some urgency. On a small window to my right was a Bank of Uganda calendar. Somehow, I always received BoU freebies even though I have never had anything to do with the Central Bank apart from some perfunctory visits, yes a few times to the 7th floor.
The call had an urgency. The Central Bank was about to appoint a senior executive to head a major department in the Bank. It may surprise a few, central banking in Uganda is both regulatory, operational and policy. As a regulator, Bank of Uganda licences 31 financial institutions and four microfinance deposit taking institutions. As an operator, Bank of Uganda is the official banking agency of the Government of Uganda. In this role it also issues currency and manages foreign exchange reserves. In policy terms, the Governor moderates monetary policy through a number of instruments the most important of which is the central bank rate. BOU advises the government on a number of matters and has a formal research department to do this. The rest of the bank’s functions are administrative, adhoc and support.
I responded to my caller, first by asking if the Bank was going to issue me formal instructions. The appointments committee of the Board (or the HR committee) had one or two questions about the gentleman’s academic credentials obtained in the United States. For starters, this wasn’t a problem as most professions are regulated and records readily available online. The problem though is that the United States itself comprises 50 independent jurisdictions. Some of these differences are arcana but quite nuanced. For example Kansas City is in Missouri, the show me state, next door to Kansas the state. Washington DC the federal capital is at least 2000 miles from Washington State the home of Microsoft.
In short, there was no time, I needed to mobilise and confirm the candidate’s credentials. A call quickly went out to the Board of Accounting. I was surprised there are far more accountants than lawyers in these states. Sadly the verification was a negative, the individual whose verification the Central Bank solicited had not even appeared for the CPA exams. The appointment was bottled but not before it became a human relations bonanza. BoU sent the individual home on early retirement with a comfortable cushion. But a long night of knives actually harvested a number of BoU officials who were involved in this last minute verification of the individuals’ verifications. These knives eventually extended to the Board of Directors that lost two very experienced members prematurely.
An appointment to the BoU board is nearly a papal appointment. It comes with a lot of privileges, least to say lifetime healthcare. Ask the current Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister and member of the Board the biggest lapel pin in his wardrobe, it’s the medical coverage.
I once fielded a phone call from one of the Governors who knows me as a friend to inquire about a routine procedure to remove cataracts. He was aware my parents who have crossed the cataract milestone four times had certain procedures conducted on their eyesight in Nairobi. Until recently cataract removal was messy and could potentially blind people.
Fortunately today, this procedure is available in Kampala at a modest cost. I asked the patient who was a senior cabinet minister why he needed the BOU coverage. He replied, BOU coverage was substantively better than what the minister in charge of benefits for cabinet ministers could get.
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate.
