Ham refused auditing that would disapprove his claims
By Angela Nyakuni
As it is Hamis Kiggundu aka Ham took USD10,000,000 in loans from DTB Uganda and DTB Kenya, but failed to pay back and instead claimed he had fully repaid the banks and in fact it was the banks that had stolen UGX120 billion from him.
Well, on 31st August 2020, Hon Justice Henry Peter Adonyo, by consent of the two parties, ordered that a court-appointed auditor would be found to carry out audit and reconciliation on Hamis Kiggundu’s accounts to determine if indeed he had repaid the banks and whether in the actual sense there was any money unlawfully deducted from the businessman’s accounts.
The trial Judge indeed went ahead to order that an independent auditor be appointed by the Institute of Certified Accounts of Uganda (ICPAU). ICPAU went on to appoint BDO Uganda, which part of BDO Global, one of the 5 largest accounting firms in the world to do audits.
But in a surprising move, Hamis Kiggundu, would on 16th September 2020, change his mind and file Miscellaneous Application No 729 of 2020, seeking to stay the appointment of the auditor and the audit itself until court pronounced itself on whether the said loans from DTB Kenya were illegal.
On 30th September 2020, Justice Adonyo ruled in favour of Hamis Kiggundu and stayed the audit and reconciliation of Ham’s accounts, dimming any hopes of ever knowing the truth if indeed Ham had repaid the loans as he claims and if indeed any money had been unlawfully deducted from his accounts as he alleges.
It was therefore surprising that without the audit in question being completed, court, on 7th October 2020 would go ahead to rule that the banks should refund the businessman the UGX 34,295,951,553/= and USD 23, 467, 670.61 (UGX86.8 billion) that he alleged had been drawn from accounts illegally.
Court also ruled that DTB Kenya conducted financial institution business in Uganda without a license and therefore the said credit facilities were illegal and therefore unenforceable. Court also said that by DTB Uganda, accepting to be an agent of DTB Kenya in a transaction that was now illegal, it had also violated the Financial Institutions Act and was therefore a principal offender under the Act and therefore liable to be penalized.
“We thank the court for its expeditious hearing of the matter though both DTBU and DTBK are aggrieved and dissatisfied with the ruling/Judgment of the court which we find both unfair and unjust and have decided to appeal the decision,” the banks reiterated.