Ham, DTB Compromising 120Bn Loan Dispute Among Themselves

Uganda’s prominent businessman and philanthropist, Hajj Hamis Kiggundu Ssegawa, and Diamond Trust Bank[DTB] are involved in frantic negotiations with the view of settling the more than two hundred billion shillings high-profile loan dispute outside court.

Insider sources have confirmed the existence of the said ongoing negotiations. “It’s true, the negotiations are on. Hopefully, parties involved will succeed and finally bring this sad chapter to a close” highly informed court sources have divulged to the Bulletin media website.

Should the negotiations turn out to be successful, the resultant final settlement will assist in putting to a close one of the most very embarrassing and disturbing banking scenarios in contemporary Uganda’s banking history where a highly valuable customer accuses the bank of literally stealing from his tens of billions of cash through making several deductions off his Ugandan and United States dollars accounts under the disguise of purportedly recovering but what are reportedly fictitious, illegal and unlawful unpaid loan installments.

Banking Controversy

While Ham borrowed a total of forty-one billion shillings from DTB Kenya and DTB Uganda and then, he states, paid off fully and well above what he borrowed, yet even so, he adds, the two sister banks shockingly went ahead and extracted a further more than tens of billions of shillings from his accounts under the cover and guise of recovering the same debts but which he had reportedly fully paid back.

Be that as it may, the two banks themselves continue to demand even more billions of cash from the businessman, prompting Ham to describe what those banks are up to as being both predatory as well as extortionist committed by a bank against its own absolutely innocent customer. Negotiations follow a controversial judgment by a Supreme Court panel led by Chief Justice, Alphonso Owiny Dollo, disallowing Ham’s request for both defenses by DTB Uganda and DTB Kenya to be struck out since the latter admits engaging in the business of banking in Uganda through the former but without the requisite authority, consent, and approval from Bank of Uganda.

Ham, an accomplished legal scholar himself, argues the admission by DTB Kenya is very legally fatal and cannot as such be glossed over by any honorable court or judge since once an illegality is brought to the attention of the court, it overrides all other matters of pleadings, points of law and whatsoever else it could be the case. Ham is very right and spot on since that very novel legal position was adopted with much approval and emphasized by the court in the famous ruling in the case of Makula International and Cardinal Wamala Nsubuga referenced.

Legal Divergence

That famous decision, well known by many elementary law students, by the way, has for many years been cited by several legal practitioners and in equally many cases and with much approval of several judges until after the Supreme Court justices led by Chief Justice Dollo of all people choose for reasons best known to themselves to reject to abide by that decision, creating a mismatch between their judgment and very many past court judgments.

Chief Justice Dollo in a lead judgment, cast aside a glaring blunder that not only saw  Diamond Trust Kenya recklessly, erroneously, unlawfully, and illegally but also deliberately and wilfully engaging in the business of dealing with Ham’s companies directly and without seeking first the Bank of Uganda’s authority, consent and approval, choosing to erroneously describe what went on instead as syndicated banking. No prize for guessing, syndicated banking is permitted worldwide but not in the absence of authority and approval from the given country’s banking services regulator concerned.

To Dollo, DTB Kenya dealt with Ham through its Ugandan sister bank, rendering the transaction legal, yet there are glaring pieces of evidence on the court record itself clearly indicating how DTB Kenya and DTB Uganda each one of them dealt with Ham via a different, distinct, and separate contract and, therefore, each one of the two on it’s very own absolute separate terms and conditions. Ham’s perfect position of law was initially adopted with approval by Justice Dr Henry Peter Adonyo when he first handled this dispute at the level of the High Court’s Commercial Division, directing the two sister financial institutions to refund the money they illegally and unlawfully extracted from Ham’s companies accounts with costs and interest apart from condemning them into legal costs.

Constitutional Conundrum

But a Principal Judge quickly curiously and controversially called for the court file, tampering with and arresting Adonyo’s judgment, prompting a dissatisfied, aggrieved, and riled Ham to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court where the Chief Justice Owiny Dollo’s led panel of Justices dismissed the appeal and ordered a retrial before another High Court judge. Oddly, the Justices of the Supreme Court in this matter dismissed the appeal without handling first Ham’s preliminary point of law in regard to the legality or not of the defense of DTB Kenya, having admitted to dealing in business in Uganda in the absence of the relevant and requisite authority, consent and approval from Bank of Uganda.

As such, that point of law which would have possibly resolved and disposed of the case in its entirety, removing it from the burdened court system remains unresolved by the highest court in the land. For that matter,  the case is back to square one since the Supreme Court ordered a retrial complete, moreover, an order for the trial judge not to look into that novel and very crucial point of law was not only duly pointed out by Ham but was also conceded to by DTB Kenya.

Quest for Justice and Allegations

Well, Ham has since taken up the matter with the Constitutional Court itself, pointing out a number of several constitutional blunders committed by the Supreme Court of all courts while dealing with this matter, leading to a wrongful, illegal, and unconstitutional unreasonable decision, occasioning to him a miscarriage of justice. Ham’s Constitutional petition makes a very interesting reading since one of the grounds he uses to differ with the Supreme Court decision is one of perjury reportedly committed by none else but by Chief Justice Owiny Dollo himself. Crucially, Ham complains, the highest court in the land, denied him his right to a fair hearing and condemned him unheard, which two are not only at the center and nucleus of the Uganda Constitution but neither are they granted by the State nor the courts themselves but are God-given.

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