UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | The Bank of Uganda (BoU) has announced that it is selling prime city properties worth billions of shillings in Kampala and Masaka City.
The assets up for sale are on Plot 7-9 Elizabeth Avenue in the upscale area of Kololo in Kampala and on Plot 41, Kampala Road in Masaka City.
The BoU invites sealed bids from eligible bidders for the disposal of these assets and said interested bidders may inspect them at their respective locations on working days from February 22, 2023, to March 14, 2023, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The BoU says the bidding document is available free of charge to all interested bidders on its website. The deadline for bid submission was set for March 15, 2023, at 10:00 am.
“This is to notify the public that BoU is not selling the residence of the Governor. That asset in Kololo is an empty plot of land that is being disposed of and not the Governor’s residence,” the BoU management said in a statement issued on Thursday, February 23, 2023.
The BoU management clarified that the property in Kololo was not the residence of the Governor but an empty plot of land being disposed of.
The Kololo property reference is FRV705 Folio 14, and that of Masaka City is FRV MSK 176 Folio 13. The bid security amount is over USh506m for the assets in Kololo and over USh24m for those in Masaka City, indicating a high value of the properties.
The BoU is expected to use the bid security as a protection against bidders withdrawing their bids before the end of their bid validity period. If they do so, they forfeit their bid security amount to the BoU.
Charity Mugumya, the Director of Communications at the BoU explains that the Kololo property had been idle for some time, while the Masaka City property was being sold as they had constructed a new branch to take care of the increased volume of business in the area, and the old branch was no longer needed.
“In Masaka, we acquired a plot and constructed a new branch to take care of the increased volume of business in the area and so, where the old branch was, is being sold,” she expalins.
It is worth noting that the BoU has been operating without a substantive governor since the death of Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile on January 23 last year.
Mutebile, who served as the BoU governor and chairman of its board of directors from 2001, died a day before President Museveni fully opened the economy for business after nearly two years of the COVID-19-induced lockdown.
The BoU Act as amended says in the absence of the governor, the deputy governor takes charge, and so Michael Atingi-Ego, who started serving as deputy governor on April 23, 2020, has been in charge.
All eyes are on President Museveni to see who he will appoint as the next governor of the BoU. Analysts note that the governor is both a person and an institution, and there is no prescribed time within which the President must appoint a new governor.
The BoU’s decision to sell its prime city properties in Kampala and Masaka City has attracted a lot of attention.
With the bid security amount being high, it is evident that these properties are of significant value. As the BoU awaits the appointment of a new governor, the sale of these properties will provide a much-needed financial boost.
Interested bidders have until March 15, 2023, to submit their bids, and the public is keen to see who will emerge as the highest bidder for these prime city properties.
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