Lango far from getting BOU currency centre
Oct 23, 2023
Lira city mayor Sam Atul pleaded with the Bank of Uganda to think about constructing a currency centre in Lira.
Chairman National Chamber of Commerce, Ogwang Edola presenting the memorandum of the business community of Bank of Uganda Currency demads. (Photos by Joseph Ekol)
By Patrick Okino and Joseph Ekol
Journalists @New Vision
_______________________ Erute South MP Odur also a businessman in Lira speaking at a stakeholders meeting organised by Bank of Uganda where he asked for a Currency Centre.
The business community in the Lango region will have to wait longer for their dream of having a currency centre in Lira City to become a reality.
Bank of Uganda (BOU) currency director Christine Alupo says for the central bank to establish a branch, the volume of cash in the region is considered first. Where the cash volume is higher and the commercial banks require their [BOU] support, a currency centre will be set up. However, according to Alupo, the region is yet to reach the threshold that warrants a currency centre.
Her revelations follow an outcry from the region's business community and local leaders for BOU to establish a currency centre in Lira city to boost their businesses.
The business community and leaders voiced out their concern during an engagement with Bank of Uganda officials in Lira City on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Bosco Ogwang Edola, the chairperson of the National Chamber of Commerce in charge of the northern and eastern regions, reminded the central bank officials that former governor Prof. Emmanuel Mutebile (RIP) in 2009 promised the Lira business community that a currency centre would be established in Lira after the one of Masaka but they have waited for the development in vain.
He added that a BOU team inspected the land that was earmarked by the Lira district local government to construct the centre and that it was only the Covid lockdown that stopped the process.
“Lira is among the highest revenue generators in the country, but the commercial and industrial city has no branch yet the branches have been established in Gulu and Arua cities. About three years ago when we got a currency technical centre, we were promised that within a short time, permanent construction of the branch would be done,” Edola said.
Lira district chairperson Richard Max Cox Okello said there is enough land in Lango where a BOU currency branch can be constructed urging the officials to take the request as a matter of urgent attention.
Lira city mayor Sam Atul pleaded with the Bank of Uganda to think about constructing a currency centre in Lira.
“We thank you for all other services, but for now, even if your bank doesn’t do anything else in Lira as planned, people would want to hear that the Centre is built in the area,” Atul told BoU bosses.
Erute South legislator Jonathan Odur implored the central bank to fulfill its commitment to establish the currency Centre in Lira.
In his response, Bank of Uganda deputy governor Michael Atingi-Ego acknowledged that Lira is a more business-booming city that warrants the community to have more Bank of Uganda services added.
He said they would go back, hold discussions with the Central Bank Board, and engage with commercial banks that are operating in the region to reanalyse the volume of currency demand in the region.
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