The Bank of Uganda (BoU) has announced that it is selling its properties worth billions of shillings in Kampala and Masaka City.

The assets it is selling are on Plot 7-9 Elizabeth Avenue in the upscale area of Kololo in Kampala, and on Plot 41, Kampala Road in Masaka City.

“This is to notify the public that BoU is not selling the residence of the Governor. That asset in Kololo is an empty plot of land that is being disposed of and not the Governor’s residence,” the BoU management said in a statement issued on Thursday, February 23, 2023.

On February 20, 2023, the BoU advertised these assets in the New Vision, saying the Kololo property reference is FRV705 Folio 14, and that of Masaka City is FRV MSK 176 Folio 13.

The BoU invited sealed bids from eligible bidders for disposal of these assets and said interested bidders may inspect them at their respective locations on working days from February 22, 2023 to March 14, 2023 from 11:00am to 4:00pm.

It said bid security amount is over sh506m for the assets in Kololo and over sh24m for those in Masaka City, meaning the value of the property could be high.

The BoU is expected to use the bid security as a protection against bidders withdrawing their bids prior to the end of their bid validity period. If they do so, they forfeit their bid security amount to the BoU.

The BoU said the bidding document is available free of charge to all interested bidders on its website. “The deadline for bid submission shall be at 10:00 am on March 15, 2023,” the advert said.

BoU elaborates

When asked why they were disposing of their assets, Charity Mugumya, the director of communications at the BoU, said in Kololo, they have had an empty plot for some time and it was an idle asset.

“In Masaka, we acquired a plot and constructed a new branch to take care of the increased volume of business in the area and so, where the old branch was, is being sold,” she told New Vision in an email.

All eyes are on President Yoweri Museveni to see who he will appoint as the next governor of the BoU.

The BoU has been operating without a substantive governor since Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile died on January 23 last year.

Mutebile, who served as the BoU governor and chairman of its board of directors from 2001, died a day before President Museveni fully opened the economy for business after nearly two years of the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

The BoU Act as amended says in the absence of the governor the deputy governor takes charge and so Michael Atingi-Ego, who started serving as deputy governor on April 23, 2020, has been in charge.

There is no prescribed time within which the President must appoint the governor who, analysts say, is both a person but more so an institution