Pension scam: Cairo bank, lawyers coached us to lie - staff

 July 10, 2015

 Written by URN

 

Two former employees of Cairo International Bank (CIB) have accused their managing director, Darwish Osama and bank lawyers of coaching them on what to say in the pension scam inquiry.
 
Ishaq Ssentongo, the former assistant manager operations and bank's former head of cash Rahma Nakigozi told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday that they were 'coached' by Darwish and lawyers Macdusman Kabega and Tom Magezi on what to say before the committee.
 
“When it [pension scam inquiry] started, we were called to the MDs office by Mr [Darwish] Osama, the bank lawyers that is Mr Kabega, Mr [Enos] Tumusiime and everyone who handled those transactions. We were all coached on what to say, what not to say. ’You should say this or else you go to prison'.

Adding: “In fact when I was recording my charge and caution Mr Tom Magezi was just next to me. Like we said; ‘don’t forget, write what we told, say what we agreed on. The bank will stay but Rahma will not stay! So better you say what we agreed on”, she said.

On Tuesday while appearing before the committee, Darwish said Nakigozi and Ssentongo conspired with some officials from the ministry of Public Service to defraud pensioners of Shs 165bn. He denied that as an institution, the bank was at fault. Darwish said Nakigozi misled the bank when she claimed to have had verified and physically seen the pensioners pick their gratuity.

Nakigozi however, says they did not know they were facilitating fraud, since they were just following orders from their top bosses. She said, she used to fill in withdraw vouchers for the supposedly pensioners who signed and left the bank with the cash.

She explained that after collecting a number of withdraw forms, she would take them to the then bank manager Muhammed Terek, who, with other staff pack the money for the 'pensioners' in the strong room.
 
Ssentongo, on his part, denied the accusations, equated the working atmosphere at Cairo Bank to a "school environment" where everything was done on order and without rules or regulations.

"Cairo Bank was like a ‘school environment’ where you have a headmaster. No rules, no regulations, no everything. All the information, you were supposed to get it from your boss…as far as those account opening forms were concerned, me I was receiving everything on my desk”, he said.

He noted that being the assistant manager operations, he would authorize account opening by appending signature on documents yet in actual sense the accounts were already in existence in the bank system.

In his special audit, the Auditor General unearthed more than 300 'ghost' pensioner accounts in Cairo Bank  that were opened before recommendation letters had been sent to the bank. 

Peter Sajjabi, the former Secretary to the East African Community Beneficiaries Association also testified on his role in the ghost pension scam. Sajjabi signed all account opening recommendation letters for the alleged 'ghost' pensioners in Cairo Bank. He denied having collected money from Cairo Bank on behalf of any pensioner saying that he only stopped at signing their recommendation letters.
 
He said that some of the people he recommended came to him personally, and for others, forms were just placed on his desk, for him to sign. PAC vice chairperson, Paul Mwiru put it to Sajjabi that he facilitated fraud by recommending people he did not know.