This archive report was first published on 25 August 2021.
On August 26, 2021, Equity Bank denied claims by Deputy President William Ruto that it loaned an unnamed investor Sh15 billion to set up a vaccine manufacturing factory in Uganda on his recommendation.
According to Dr. Ruto, he had successfully placed a call to the bank to fund the investor towards the construction of a Covid-19 manufacturing factory owned by Dei Pharmaceuticals.
However, the director of legal affairs at Equity Group, Christine Browne, told Parliament that the bank never made such a transaction.
She explained that such a deal would be impractical since it would be in breach of the bank’s single obligatory lending limit — the maximum amount an individual is allowed to borrow.
Equity Uganda’s regulatory capital is about Sh9.8 billion, and the law only allows an individual to borrow 25 percent of this amount, which would translate to Sh2.5 billion — way below the Sh15 billion that Dr. Ruto had claimed was loaned to the investor.
Additionally, Mrs. Browne denied any links between Equity Bank and a controversial Turkish businessman, Harun Aydin, who was deported from the country last month, for suspected involvement in money laundering.
“Mr. Aydin has never had any relationship with the bank, directly or indirectly, not been through Dei Pharmaceuticals. He is a stranger to the bank,” she told the National Assembly Committee on Finance and National Planning.
