Despite Court of Appeal ordering Orient Bank to open up the frozen bank accounts of Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC), the bank has since refused to comply according to information reaching ChimpReports.
On December 9, Justice Stephen Kavuma ordered the bank to immediately defreeze the accounts so as to enable the party run its activities after upholding Lira Municipality legislator, James Michael Akena as the genuine party president.
However, Chimpreports has learnt that the party led by Akena served Orient Bank with the ruling on Monday 14 and have held several meeting with the bank management and lawyers asking them to respect the court ruling, but the bank declined to comply.
“These Bank guys are just giving us hard time, they are claiming that there is already a court case in the Commercial Court that unless it is determined, they won’t allow us access to the account,” noted Akena’s aide, Denis Adim Enap.
Enap who is at the centre of pushing for the opening of the account added “It is true there is a case in the Commercial Court but this too was overruled by Justice Kavuma”.
In his ruling Kavuma noted that, “….The justice of this application, in its peculiarity requires that the 1st Applicants’ (UPC) activities should not be paralyzed by disagreements between some sections of the party pertaining to its leadership.”
“The Party’s interests should not be sacrificed at the altar of those said disagreements, it should be allowed in the interim, to carry out its basic activities and to solicit whatever funding it can legally access…..”
Enap noted that after all engagements with the bank management failed to secure the desired results, the party resolved to seek the intervention of the governor Bank of Uganda (BOU), Emmanuel Mutebile to force Orient Bank to comply with the orders.
The party has since written to the BOU Executive Director Supervision complaining of the “partisan conduct of Orient Bank,” accusing them of sidelining with their opponents led by Joseph Bossa.
“The Bank has willfully declined to honor transactions without any Court Order and lawful justification as it appears to be under the instructions of UPC detractors thereby disregarding lawful orders of Court hence acting partisan,” noted a letter written by the party Secretary General, Edward Segganyi to BOU.
“The purpose hereof is to implore you to compel the bank to respect and implement the Court of Appeal Order and refrain the bank from operating unprofessionally.”
Asked what will follow in case Bank of Uganda does not act in their favor, Enap said that, “We shall mount political and legal pressure; which will include the party secretariat succumbing to the pressure from party members camping at the bank premises obstructing normal operations till the account is open.”