UGANDA DECEMBER 2, 2024: The Central Bank has for the first time issued a statement confirming the theft of billions from the national treasury allegedly by hackers who are said to have made away with monies in the range of 62 Billion shillings.
Reports circulated in the media last week indicating that security organs were probing circumstances related to a breach of the Central Bank’s IT systems resulting in international payments being diverted from their intended beneficiaries. The reports also indicated that several official within the BOU management were being questioned over suspected collusion that resulted into compromising the Bank’s cyber security systems thereby facilitating the fraudulent activity.
The Central Bank now says they are ready to cooperate with investigating organs and hope the probe will provide clarity of what exactly happened.
“The BOU takes these matters with the utmost seriousness.” The statement from BOU spokesperson, Kenneth Egesa posted on Monday reads in part.
“We immediately launched a comprehensive internal investigation to: fully understand the complete extent of these incidents, conduct a thorough process review, and identify and implement steps to prevent similar incidents in future” Mr. Egesa notes in the statement.
When the matter was raised in Parliament on Thursday, the State Minister for General Duties at the Ministry of Finance, Henry Musasizi, confirmed that investigations were ongoing and promised to table an official report after investigations have been concluded. He however disputed the 62Billion figure reported in the media claiming this may not be correct.
“We are actively cooperating with relevant authorities including the Criminal Investigations Directorate of Uganda Police, Financial Intelligence Authority and the Office of the Auditor General to assist in their investigations.” Egesa notes before adding;
“We anticipate that the investigative findings will comprehensively clarify the details of how these payments were initiated and processed through BOU.” He also promised to issue a detailed update once the investigations are complete.