By Marvin Ocol

Stephen Kaboyo, the Managing Director Alpha Capital Partners, an indigenous Ugandan firm focusing on sovereign asset management foreign exchange trading strategies and financial markets advisory, has said that the court rulings against Uganda denying ever taking loans from foreign firms give a bad image to the country.

Speaking on a panel at the Absa post budget conference Thursday at Sheraton hotel in Kampala, Kaboyo said in any case, before the ruling, the Judges should first consult “some of us” before making the Judgment public.

He argued that such rulings throw all the dirt at Uganda as an investment destination.

“There will be an opportunity in the hospitality industry of like 5 million dollars for investment. And they will say, look, how can we come there when we will borrow someone who is going to deny it,” Kaboyo said.

Kaboyo asked the Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Patrick Ocailap who was on the panel to engage the “powers that be” so as to reign over such matters in future.

He noted that the collateral management system in Uganda is largely not being effective.

Whereas Kaboyo did not mention names, there have been two prominent cases of that nature in the recent past.

First was Hamis Kiggundu alias Ham against DTB Bank (Uganda and Kenya). In this case Ham accused DTB of breach of contract after they lent him over US$ 10 million.  The second and most recent case is of Patrick Bitature. Recently, while defending his dealings with a South African lender, Bitature said that he signed the facility in error. Court has since ruled in the opposite.