The Uganda Bankers’ Association says some banks may have refused to extend loans to 107 Members of Parliament currently facing election petitions as a precautionary measure to guard against losing money.
In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Wilbrod Owor, the executive director Uganda Bankers’ Association, said while it is not an industry-wide position, an election petition represents a financial gamble.
‘I have also just read about it somewhere but there hasn’t been an engagement at industry level. These loans are extended to parliamentarians over their term of office in Parliament maybe they have seen election petitions as a major risk that can make individuals default on the loans,’ he said.
He explained that MPs face multiple financial demands right from their constituencies.
‘Once they join the House, they are normally bombarded by loan shacks, money lenders including fellow members of parliament and banks willing to give them credit facilities but repaying the money sometimes becomes a challenge,’ he said.
After the 2016 general elections, this publication witnessed firsthand a former junior trade Minister and MP from Busoga region in the 9th Parliament scamper for safety from the newly appointed trade minister Sanjay Tanna’s private office at Petro City Kampala Road when the former legislator mistook men in suits walking along the street minding their own business for money lenders trailing him.
Around the same time, conmen duped a fresh MP from Eastern Uganda to pay Shs1.2bn for a house in Kampala whose market price then was valued at Shs300m. The legislator reportedly left parliament more indebted than when he joined the house.
Stories abound of previous MPs who made parliament their safe haven to hide from money lenders who started hunting them down within the precincts of parliament to pay loans acquired to fund campaigns, with the hope that salaries and allowances would pay off the money.
Some MPs who have lost elections, filed petitions against the results and also lost the cases, have found themselves discovering that even below the basement of poverty, there is another basement that has wiped them out of the public eye and their constituencies.