Giles Aijukwe, the Chief Executive Officer at Letshego, a financial institution in Uganda has fled the country after a controversial sale of a borrower’s prime property.
The sold property sits on block 214, Plot 4773, Kisasi, a suburb in Nakawa, a Division in Kampala City.
The property belonged to Mr. Alex Nionzima who obtained different loans of Ugx 100 million in (2018), Ugx 100 million in 2019 and another of Ugx 90 million in late 2019 from the financial institution.
The client presented different collateral of land titles in Kikaaya, along Mityana Road valued at Ugx 200 million, Bahai, Valued at Ugx 400 million and another at Kisasi valued at Ugx 1 billion.
However, Nionzima, in October 2022 started complaining about the exorbitant fees that were charged against him on the loan offer. Nionzima had paid up to Ugx 292 million and asked for an audit of how much was the remaining loan balance.
According to Nionzima, he was about to complete payment of the loan amount with only Ugx 88 million remaining, he was slapped with a new amount of up to Ugx 343 million to be repaid by the same client, raising the amount to be repaid more than double of the principal amounts he borrowed.
It is upon such background that Nionzima sought the intervention of the regulator, the Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority – UMRA, Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank (Bank of Uganda) to reprimand the financial institution (Letshego) against the inflation of the loan fees.
The Regulator, together with the complainant (Nionzima) and the Financial Institution held mediation meetings on January 6th and January 19th this year and agreed that no transaction be continued until there they agree on how much to pay. The three parties were expected to meet again on January 31st this year for a compromising decision.
However, the Financial Institution went ahead to sale off the said piece of land situated in Kisasi, Kampala valued at Ugx 1 billion. It was instead sold at Ugx 800 million without consensus from the different parties.
It has been established that the Chief Executive Officer later traveled abroad on an alleged leave offer he got from the institution. Sources intimate to this website indicate that the Chief Executive Officer sold the property to himself through a third party, Ms. Betty Kyomuhendo.
In January this year, Kyomuhendo through her lawyers notified tenants at Plot 4773 Kisasi that she was the new landlord and that Nionzima had sold the property to her, something Nionzima denies.
“Take further notice that; effective immediately, all monthly rental payments must be deposited on the following bank account,” the letter reads.
In an interview with the Head of Corporate Affairs at Letshego Mr. Roger Mugisha, all allegations of the CEO buying the property through a third party were termed as baseless and not true. The CEO when contacted by this website about the same denied the allegations.
“We are a reputable organization that operates transparently,” he said. Asked if the borrower was offered a copy of the Loan Agreement and key fact agreement, Mugisha refused to answer the question. However, sources told this website that up to now, no loan agreement has been offered to Mr. Nionzima.
Mugisha however gave this website three newspaper announcements published in February last year as the only legal documents that the institution was willing to share for them to sale Mr. Nionzima’s property.
It has also been established that the sold property was not the one attached to the remaining loan balance.
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