HAM’S IGNORANCE EXPOSED; Ham’s Video Message Was Outrageously Lacking In Substance And Inciting Xenophobic Attacks On Investors
When the
Ugandan court ruled that Diamond Trust Bank had to pay Ugandan entrepreneur and
businessman Hamis Kigundu and his company a sum of 120 billion shillings
together with interest following a legal technicality in the process, most
Ugandans thought it was fairly based on justified reasons.
Without
going into the details of the court ruling, you have to listen to the video
clip of Ham himself in which he seemed to address Ugandans on Independence Day
9th October 2020 last week.
In the video
message which was shared widely on social media networks Ham makes statements
which expose the weaknesses and lack of substance in his submission in regard
to the misunderstandings he has with the bank.
He made
around five outrageous claims which I want to dwell on for the sake of
objective analysis. I listened to the
video clip and concluded that my compatriot is purely ignorant on how the
economy works especially in regard to the investors.
Claim One; Foreign Owned Banks
Ham claims
that Ugandan banks are mostly owned by foreigners who oppress Ugandans and
pumper their fellow foreigners. He also went on to say that these banks have
low capital float which cannot afford to run their banks effectively. That they
use the money deposits from the locals to give out loans because they are undercapitalized.
The question
then is, why did Ham choose to opt for a foreign owned bank? Are there no local
banks owned by local Ugandans?
We have
banks that are purely owned and run by Ugandans and have sufficient capital float
capable of giving out any amount of money. . A case in point is centenary bank
which has been doing very well for very many years and continue to do well up
to the present day. Why didn’t he go to centenary bank that is owned by locals?
But most
important of all, in the video clip, Ham doesn’t explain how he got into a
misunderstanding with the bank. He openly evades the fact that he had a
financial relationship with the bank. He even doesn’t explain circumstances of
how he got involved the bank, leave alone whether he picked a loan from the
bank or not.
This in
itself simply means that he is not being truthful.
CLAIM TWO; Discriminative Loan Offers
Ham goes on
to claim that these foreigners give out less money to Ugandans in a very
discriminative manner. That these banks give bog money loans to foreigners
compared to Ugandans.
Question
then is, if these banks are known to give little money to local Ugandans as
compared to the feigners whom they give a lot, how did he manage to get all
those billions of loan money from the same bank?
Did he first
disguise himself as a foreigner to qualify for the big money loan? Can he explain to Ugandans how he managed to
maneuver and get access to such a loan facility which he claims was a preserve
of foreigners.
CLAIM THREE; Illegal Withdraw Of Shs
120bn
Ham claims
that diamond trust bank managed to withdraw money illegally from his accounts
to a tune of 120 billion shillings in a space of ten years.
Question is,
how DTB managed to get access to his bank accounts in the first place. Was he
already having a financial relationship with the bank or not?
Why did it
take him ten years to realize that the bank had withdrawn all that huge sum of
money from his accounts?
Ten years is
not just a walk in the park. It’s such a very long time.
The truth is
that DTB withdrew all those colossal amounts of money from his accounts in a
prearranged process of paying back the loan he had got.
CLAIM FOUR; Discriminative Interest
Rates
Mr Ham also
asserts that DTB is so discriminative that it charges higher interest rates to
Ugandans and offers lower interest to foreigners.
By making
such a claim, Ham failed to do us a favor by breaking down the discriminatory process
of the interest rates of the bank.
Ham should
have explained the rates given to Ugandans vis-à-vis the rates given to
foreigners.
He for
instance failed to reveal what interest rate was imposed on him in the first
place, when he picked the loan. But he didn’t.
By not
revealing the discriminatory details of the interest rates, Ham did not seem to
be truthful at all.
CLAIM FIVE; Capital Flight
Ham tried to
incite Ugandans to rise up against the foreign investors by claiming that these
banks owners do what is termed s capital flight when they make a lot of profit
which they take to their countries.
Ham was
trying to tell Ugandans that these foreigners are not entitled to the profit
they make from their investments in Uganda. Oh dear!
By making
such a claim Ham is trying to suggest that investors should invest money in
Uganda and keep the profits in Uganda for the good of Uganda!
Oh, what a pack of ignorance!
When the
president goes to foreign countries and pleads for investors to come to Uganda,
the first incentive he promises these investors is the profitability of the
country called Uganda. He tells them that they will make more profits here more
than they would in any other country in the world.
In fact when
the president was making his Independence Day speech, he quoted an Indian who
described Uganda as a country of three Ps, 1; pleasant,2; peaceful and
3;profitable.
What Ham
should know is that Uganda needs investors more than ever before to the extent
that we give them tax holidays to seduce them to pump big money in our
economy. Where does he get the audacity
to question the way they use their money in Uganda?
If Ham makes
investments in Kenya, can he keep that money in Kenya or he brings it back
home?
In any case
Ham is ignorant of the fact that Uganda benefits from investors through
indirect means like offering employment to Ugandans, paying taxes, paying for
utilities like electricity and water etc.
By Him
questioning the capital flight by investors exposed his ignorance about how the
economy runs. There are inward, forward and backward linkage benefits involved
with investors which I expected Ham to know.
XENOPHOBIC HAM
Finally, Ham
makes what he termed as a patriotic call to Ugandans to shun these foreigners
and their impunity. This patriotic call was nothing but a xenophobic attack on
investors.
He tried to
call on the judiciary and government to make sure that they don’t bend to the
calls from investors because they are exploitative. Was he trying to persuade
government and the people of Ugandan to turn against these investors?
HAM’S BANK REFORMS
Lastly, Ham
claims that he had proposed bank reforms, but failed to narrate which reforms
he was talking about. Was he trying to say that foreigners shouldn’t own or run
banks in his reforms?
Was he
trying to suggest that profits made by investors must stay in the country?
Why doesn’t
he elaborate on those bank reforms he claims he was championing?
Although I
have not dwelt on the court judgment itself , I suspect that once the bank
makes an appeal , which Is obviously inevitable , Ham will lose the case.
I rest my case for now with the hope that Mr Hamis kigundu has leanrt the importance of the investors and how they operate.
The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a social
critic and a blogger
Contact him on kamwadafred@gmail.com
Ends
