Uganda

Uganda's police have detained nine finance ministry officials as part of an investigation into accusations of hacking the central bank's electronic systems that resulted in theft of 62 billion shillings ($16.87 million), the ministry and police said, Reuters reported. In November last year, State Minister for Finance Henry Musasizi confirmed reports in local media that the central bank's accounts had been hacked and money stolen.
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Uganda’s central bank maintained its key lending rate at 9.75%, citing easing inflation amid increased investment in the country’s fledging oil-and-gas industry, the Wall Street Journal reported. Uganda’s economic outlook remains positive, strengthened by inflows into the oil industry, where France’s TotalEnergies and China’s Cnooc Ltd are developing a 230,000 barrels-a-day crude project. These investments are strengthening the local currency, easing imported inflation, Bank of Uganda Deputy Governor Michael Atingi-Ego said in a statement.
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Uganda plans to pull back from variable interest-rate loans after government debt has more than doubled in almost five years because of obtaining costly commercial credit, the East African nation’s Finance Ministry said, Bloomberg News reported. The stock of public debt jumped to 93.4 trillion shillings ($24.7 billion) at the end of last year from 42.2 trillion shillings in June 2019, according to the ministry’s medium-term debt management report. It was up 13.6% year-on-year in 2023 in dollar terms, partly due to Stanbic Bank budget financing.
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Uganda’s chief legal officer urged the Finance Ministry to refrain from renegotiating the terms of a $200 million Chinese loan as it is able to meet its debt obligations, Bloomberg News reported. The agreement signed in 2015 with the Export-Import Bank of China to fund the expansion of the Entebbe Airport came with several contentious clauses, including one that could see the lender take ownership of the facility in the event of a default.
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The Ugandan High Court on Wednesday ruled that a syndicated loan granted to a local company was illegal in a shock judgment that banks warned could lead to a spike in defaults on $1.5 billion of debt, Bloomberg News reported. The case relates to a loan Diamond Trust Bank Kenya Ltd. provided to a Kampala-based firm with interests spanning real estate to agriculture, using its Ugandan subsidiary as the agent.

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