Addressing the Parliament on Friday, the Prime Minister tasked the Central Bank to investigate the allegations in order to save more customers from losing their money in mysterious ways.
“So, I am going to inform the Bank of Uganda so that they can investigate these allegations, I believe the Ministry of Finance will come here with a report. I also intend on causing a meeting because we were told under PDM, some of our people in PDM were also defrauded,” Nabbanja said.
Nabbanja’s directive comes at a time when several customers have complained about money being withdrawn from their bank accounts without their authorization and BoU’s has been mute with no clear solution to the increased fraud in banks.
Recent Scandals
Recently a customer with Centenary Bank, came out to claim that Shs100 million of her savings had been withdrawn from her account by unknown people however Centenary bank investigated the matter and found out that one of their staff had connived with a fraudster to withdraw the money which they said has been refunded.
”We have discovered that there was connivance between a fraudster and one of our staff to make a pin reset which enabled transactions at agents where funds were withdrawn.” the bank said in its statement. As part of corresponding action, the staff has been forwarded to the police to be handled together with the fraudster.” Centenary Bank said in a statement.
In another case, equity bank customer identified as Farook Ssekandi posted a video in which he claimed that Shs10m had been withdrawn from his Equity Bank account without his knowledge.
“They (Equity Bank) stole my Shs10m. I am here begging for my money. There isn’t anyone to help me.. They took my money. They have never called me. Now they are taking me in circles,” Ssekandi said.
In response however, Equity bank denied abetting or aiding fraud, noting that the customer’s money had been withdrawn by unknown individuals after losing his phone.
“Whereas we are bound by the client confidentiality rule and therefore cannot disclose customer interactions in the media, we wish to reiterate our message to all our customers that in the event of loss of their phone, they should immediately report to the bank through our 24/7 customer helpline 0312327000. We are engaging and supporting the affected customer as well as working with the relevant authorities to resolve this matter as quickly as possible,” Equity bank said.
