Post Bank gives Kotido SS timeline to clear unpaid bus loan of shs121m by Oct. 2023

The government-aided secondary school still owes Post Bank Uganda shs121m in the hyped bus deal.

Kotido – January 11, 2022: Kotido senior secondary school has struggled to pay back the shs200 million bus loan they borrowed since 2018.

On December 28, 2018, the above school secured a loan of shs200 million from Post Bank Uganda for buying a school bus.

The loan was payable in instalments of shs31, 573,564.00 per month from March 15, 2019, to September 15, 2021.

The interest rate was agreed at 23 per cent annum. TND News understands the loan has not been completed up to now.

After noticing they were entering into trouble, on June 28, 2021, the school requested the lender for an adjustment [terms and conditions] of the loan repayment.

Their key reason was that the lockdown and closure of schools due to Covid-19 affected their repayment.

According to documents signed by both parties, Post Bank has gently agreed to give its client (school) another repayment plan to complete shs121, 064,822.00.

In that manner, the school is expected to clear the remaining loan balance agreed in six termly instalments on October 20, 2023.

To make this possible, the school is starting the first payment of shs23, 345,782 on February 20, 2022 – TND News’ Hope Ochero Owiny reports.

In an exclusive interview with Our Reporter, the school headteacher Wubo Robert Sebuta Joshua, says students have been advised to pay school fees direct to Post Bank (account) to help cater for the loan.

“Once the money enters the bank it can not be withdrawn till the loan is fully recovered,” he adds.

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He reveals the school came into an agreement with the bank to waive off the loan interest, adding that they agreed and confirmed when the school makes the first repayment.

Before the school acquired a bus loan, each student had been contributing shs10, 000 yearly. This contribution purposely to buy a bus was made for over one decade.

When asked about money collected from students prior, Sebuta said, “I was not in Kotido SSS by then.”

He, however, reveals the school sometimes uses the money meant for the development fund to respond to some emergencies provided the board has approved.

Illegalities

The Public Accounts Committee report of 2019 revealed that shs75m for the bus was paid to an unknown source/seller in Kampala. They faulted former headteacher, Jackson Matsanga.

The police criminal investigations unit in Kotido later took over the investigations on Matsanga – probing him over misuse of a fund to buy a school bus and refusing to table accountability.

Since 2019 when the matter was reported to Kotido Central Police Station by the school management committee, by December 2021, Police was yet to show any success in its investigations after the DPP had rejected the file over lack of evidence.

Matsanga innocent

PRO of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Charles Twiine told this publication last week that the DPP has finally (again) withdrawn the charges against Matsanga for lack of evidence.