By Joachim Twino
Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) MD Albert Saltson must have slaughtered and eaten his chicken last night having survived would-be very embarrassing scenes at Buganda Road Grade I Magistrates Court sitting at City Hall where he was eagerly being awaited for arrest but didn’t show up yesterday afternoon Thursday 7th June. Saltson was expected in the Buganda Road Grade 1 court sitting at City Hall but he didn’t turn up even when criminal summons had been issued against him earlier. As we reported earlier, Saltson had been summoned along with two SCB top officials namely Winnie Ojambo and Julius Baluku who heads the loans collections department. They were expected to appear before the Magistrate Thursday at 2pm but the MD, said to be very frightened with the prospect of being sent to Luzira, was no show. The apparently angered Magistrate gave him a new date of 7th August when Saltson must turn up in person since matters of criminal liability are personal and require one to personally defend himself. The background to this all is that the SCB top management criminally withheld banking information from Habib Kagimu’s Habib Oil company, a borrower whose properties they nevertheless proceeded to sell by public auctioning alleging default in loan repayment. The borrower wrote to them seeking that his auditors and lawyers be permitted access to the relevant information on how the transactions have been taking place on his dollar account (8704014296700) held at SCB since 2011. Acting with blatant impunity, the SCB top executives denied the borrower’s lawyers and auditors access to the desired information. This mischievous conduct by Saltson and his two other colleagues prompted the borrower’s lawyer Fred Muwema to commence criminal proceedings on grounds that this was contrary to section 16 of the Computer Misuse Act 2011 which requires that clients must be permitted access to information regarding their accounts. Habib Oil Director Ahmed Noor Osman says this concealment of client information occasioned substantial damage and injury the company. Muwema remains determined to secure Saltson’ public humiliation and arrest even on 7th August when the matter returns to the Magistrates court. He says his client is willing and ready to pay the outstanding loan balances but that will be after his auditors have been accorded chance to access and verify the transactions that have occurred on the bank account. Alleging default by the borrower, SCB has previously advertised Kagimu’s prime properties calling on buyers to register their interest to purchase them only to be successfully countered by Kagimu’s lawyer Muwema who prudently rushed to the High Court and put caveat on all the targeted properties. This has put the bank’s original game plan in disarray and left SCB bosses stuck and stranded on how to proceed yet the resultant negative publicity has so far been very demonizing to the SCB brand. The targeted properties at the heart of the dispute include Plot 18 Wampewo Avenue in Kololo, Plot 109 Sir Apollo Kaggwa Road and Plot 114-116 Bunyonyi Drive Kiswa in Bugolobi. See our earlier story (titled He will weep: Magistrate Summons StanChart MD Saltson for Defrauding Tycoon Habib Kagimu) for a more detailed version. SCB, which is one of the country’s biggest bank, is enduring all this storm at the time of equally damaging reports pointing at curious transactions, involving colossal sums of money, connected to men of notoriety renowned for working with ex-IGP Gen Kale Kayihura. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755.
