By Our Reporters
In a two page dossier, a whistle blower exposes the rot at Standard Chartered Bank. Addressed to Albert Saltson the CEO of Standard Chartered (one of the biggest banks in the industry), the dossier is dated 23rd March 2018 and it shows areas in which middle level managers are conniving to rip off the bank that employs them. The blind copy of the petition is also shared with BoU the regulator and the authors conclude that the international banking institution, that has always kept a good image, “is deeply exposed to the risk if the situation isn’t addressed.” We couldn’t readily establish what steps the BoU and Standard Chartered Bank CEO were taking on getting the petition. We were unable to have this established because the number for Cynthia Mpanga, the one charged with speaking for the bank, was unavailable each time we called on it. But we spoke to Mr. Twesige Swizzin, one of the many Relatioship Managers the whistle blower says have taken advantage of the lapses in the bank’s systems to become outrageously very rich. Whereas he earns Shs7m per month, the whistle blower claims Twesige owns too much property for his salary. He owns a posh house in Katooke village near Kawempe (valued at over Shs200m) and he is also associated with very successful money lending businesses in town. Sources named some of the companies under whose names he operates money lending targeting mostly loan applications that fail to succeed borrowing from Standard Chartered bank. There are mostly SME traders from Kikubo and Nabugabo. It’s said one of his brother Job, who sometime back controversially returned to Uganda after a controversial stint serving in the US army, is the one who runs these money lending companies with Twesige keeping in the background. He is said to own several luxury cars including a brand new land cruiser in the UBB series. They others include a Navara, a Suzuki Escuardo and a Harrier which his brother crushed sometime back while returning from night partying. Wealthy Twesige, in his early 40s, also owns a supermarket and a multi-billion residence in Hoima Itara village. The supermarket is also in Hoima. He also has a dealership of Albertine Water and is also into cosmetics importation into Uganda from South Africa. A young freshly graduated is said to be the one overseeing the cosmetics distribution network. He is very outgoing and generous to campus students for whom he likes buying drinks at happening places like Club Amnesia, Guvnor and Sheraton’s Equator Bar. He also maintains expensive rented homes for his children in places like Naalya, Kisaasi and Bugolobi. The whistle blower gives him as an example of guys whose employment in the Standard Chartered Bank’s credit/loans department has made them very rich in such a short time. He implores the CEO to become interested and inquire into Twesige and other RMs’ wealth. The whistle blower also refers to the supervisors who are letting down the bank including a one Henry Sebaana and another guy called Patrick Ishanga. The two supervisors are said to have slept on the job as those they are supposed to supervise are amassing wealth at the expense of their employer. The whistle blower says there is a lot of “connivance between relationship managers at the head office, Kikuubo branch and the traders.”
TWESIGE REACTS;
Having failed to get Cynthia Mpanga, we rang Twesige who admitted being rich but denied any wrong doing. He said he believes there are people who are envious of his wealth and have now resorted to using the media to antagonize him. “My track record is very clear and there is nothing at all on my employment file with the bank. I have lived a very clean life professionally in the last 10 years I have worked [started out at Barclays and Eco bank before Standard Chartered wooed him]. I have never received a warning letter but I know someone is using the media to fight a wrong battle. Let them write because I’m not the first one to be written about and in any case I’m too small to make news. They wrote about Kasese killings; didn’t it stop? Museveni is written about every day but has it ever killed him?” wealthy Twesige said insisting that even when the whistle blower was accusing him personally, the right person to comprehensively speak to this news website is Cynthia Mpanga who we failed to get.
OTHER WHISTLE BLOWER POINTS;
The whistle blower raises a number of areas that the CEO should investigate into to save the bank against rampaging employees who have served long enough and know how to beat the system. It’s understood that banks like Stanbic have been trying to lure some of the RMs with bigger offers “but they have refused to switch because the laxity at Standard Chartered earns them much more.” The whistle blower claims that some of the RMs ask for as much as 10% of the loan money before a borrower’s loan application can be approved. The victims are mostly SME traders from down town who always want quick money without having to go through rigorous scrutiny preceding the loan approval. The whistle blower implies that its such guys that the sharp RMs take advantage of luring them to their own money lending firms which in most cases are brief cases businesses that aren’t even properly registered. The RM will just ring a relative of his or hers directing them that “please arrange Shs30m for so and so.” The whistle blower claims that such RMs no longer rely on the salary but hang in there in order to use the bank merely for address and liaison purposes. Its borrowers seeking bigger monies that are squeezed to part with 10% of the loan sum in order to secure the necessary approval. “They [RMs] give the impression that their bosses have to be bribed to have them process their loans yet most of the money ends up in their pockets,” the whistle blower writes. “Further they go ahead of ask for further tips once the approval is done.” The whistle blower urges the CEO to keenly probe some guys in the retail banking section. That there is a network of RMs who report to a certain big man who sits inside the Standard Chartered building on Speke Road. As if s/he has ever been a victim himself, the whistle blower advises the CEO to quietly go and ask borrowers in Kikubo who will confirm that “every loan that the RMs present for approval must come with a bribe.” The whistle blower adds that; “Those that don’t present some money are usually delayed and sometimes denied/not approved or frustrated.” The whistle blower adds that “many of them [RMs] have built large capital base that they run several mobile lending businesses.” That some of them make it appear as if the money lending firm is a family business and for them are merely compassionate middlemen linking the frustrated borrower to a quick solution. “Yet in actual sense they are the money lenders. This makes them rob the bank of potential clients and profitability.” The whistle blower rants on: “Through this they have acquired a lot of wealth. They run several bank accounts with huge sums of money. Their lifestyles bring a lot of suspicion. Eco bank Uganda and Barclays are their personal bankers where they keep their money. Some of the accounts are also run in the names of their children.” The whistle blower, who appears to know much more, adds thus; “While fulfilling requirements for approval of loans especially when there are buy-offs of loans from other banks, bank statements are forged from Nasser and Nkrumah road. Your RMs have learn the art of presenting fake bank statements. This presents false information to the bank as most of the buy off loans from other banks are usually brought on board because they are bad loans. Because they extort money from clients and there is a clique of RMs associated with people in the head office, it is always easy to have all these approvals. You will be shocked that some clients have even developed close relationships with RMs because they help them to defraud the bank.” Some of the financially troubled Kwagalana Group tycoons with trading operational bases down town are said to be greatest beneficiaries of this sort of thing. Not done, the whistle blower also impeaches the character of some of the securities used to give out loans. “Some of these RMs present fake land titles, fake search results from the lands ministry and actually fake valuation reports. Some properties are overvalued when one bribes. If a client is not willing to bribe his way, his properties are undervalued as a punishment. The acceptance of fake land titles comes from the fact that a network of fraudulent characters has been built within the bank.” The whistle blower says there is also the practice of “smuggling client’s documents/ information to other banks.” Specifically on this one, this is how the whistle blower writes: “Some of these RMs smuggle documents from the bank’s registry, photocopy clients’ files and sell this information to other fellow banks. In all this, the information is given out at a fee. Generally there is a lot of fraud and connivance with clients that if it is not addressed, the bank is seated on a time bomb…May you have any doubt in this whistle blower’s communication, you are very free to do your private investigations into this.” For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755!
