COVID-19 update: Bank of Uganda to provide liquidity assistance to Commercial Banks to cope with coronavirus outbreak
Bank of Uganda (BoU) has pledged to grant exceptional liquidity aid to Commercial Banks in Uganda for one year to cope with coronavirus outbreak.
The economy is already shaken; from the Finance Ministry projections revenue collections alone could register an additional shortfall of about 82.4 billion shillings, although Uganda is still Coronavirus free country.
This effect is believed to affect the financial institutions as well according to BoU of Uganda Governor, Prof. Emmanuel Mutebile which may lead to a liquidation need. So, for this reason, BoU has granted exceptional financing to solve its financial difficulties in case the need arises.
“To provide exceptional liquidity assistance for one year to any financial institution supervised by the Bank of Uganda which may require it,” Mutebile said.
Mutebile also said BoU will also intervene in the foreign exchange markets to ensure the market here is not affected by the crisis from the global markets.
“To intervene in the foreign exchange markets, to smoothen out excess liability arising from global financial markets,” Mutebile said.
Mutebile urged Mobile Money networks operators to reduce fees on Mobile Money transactions to encourage cashless payments to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission as cautioned by WHO.
“We will continue to engage Mobile Money operators and commercial Banks to first further reduce fees on Mobile Money transactions and other digital payment charges to limit the use of cash and bank branch visit,” Mutebile said.
Chinese nationals escape from mandatory quarantine
Relatedly the Ministry of Health and Uganda Police yesterday raided an apartment in Naguru after residents reported that a racket of Chinese Nationals had escaped from the established quarantine centres in Entebbe.
According to Police, a group of over 30 Chinese and Pakistan nationals escaped from Central Inn in Entebbe, the official quarantine centre for all entrants to an unregulated apartment in Naguru by the aid of another Chinese national only known as Mama.
The residents living around the apartment raised an alarm after a van blue in colour belonging to Imperial Hotel dropped them to the apartment which they suspected to have escaped from the institutional quarantine at Central Inn in Entebbe.
Residence said since arrival the Chinese moved freely and attended to by Ugandans girls and before they had started complaining they would get out, walk through the lift, stairs but when they started complaining they locked them up in the house.
The Ministry of Health officials in the area had to take samples of the Chinese but it wasn’t an easy move after officials were seen making calls to the Chinese embassy to allow them to draw samples from them.
This prompted the Police’s Intervention for the exercise to be successful.
Residents say investigations should be conducted on a Chinese Nationals only known as Mama because she has continuously aided Chinese Nationals to escape from the institutional quarantine to other places with the help of highly placed people in government.
The loopholes in the quarantine measures against Coronavirus could expose the over 40 million Ugandans to the virus.
And now this generates fears that people from worst-hit countries could enter the country escaping the mandatory quarantine which puts Uganda at a high risk of the virus.
Also, after a heated debate between the Ministry of Health officials and travellers who contested the 100 USD charges per day charge for the mandatory quarantine at Central Inn Entebbe, the government reduced this amount to 55 USD.
More to that, yesterday on Friday 20th, March 2020, Uganda blocked the entry of 10 South Korean nationals upon arrival at the Entebbe International Airport as one of the measures to prevent the spread of the virus into the country.
Reports from John Hopkins University in the United States of America (USA) indicates that more than 260,000 people have been infected in 166 countries, while 87,000 have recovered from the disease, mostly from China where the outbreak first erupted.
The death toll is at 11,300 worldwide as of today Saturday 21, March 2020 with a possibility of breaching 12,000 by the end of the day.
Italy today is the epicentre of the Coronavirus which started in China Wuhan City, it reported 627 deaths on Friday highest so far and the number of new cases also shot staggeringly higher 5,986 cases.
