By Prossy Namiiro
Bank of Uganda’s longest serving governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile has died at 72.
Mutebile died in the early hours on Sunday at Nairobi Hospital in Kenya where he had been battling with diabetes related complications.
Close sources reveal that Mutebile with his personal doctor were flown to Nairobi after he reportedly collapsed on the New years eve.
Mutebile was a Ugandan economist and banker. He was first appointed Central Bank Governor on 1 January 2001 and was re-appointed for a second five-year term on 1 January 2006. In December 2015, he was re-appointed for a fourth five-year term, effective 12 January 2016.
Professor Mutebile attended Kigezi College Butobere for his O-Level studies (grades S1-S4). He then attended Makerere College School in Kampala for his A-Level studies (grades S5-S6). In 1970, he entered Makerere University, where he was elected president of the university Students’ Guild.
He was forced to flee Uganda in 1972 after he gave a speech publicly criticizing the expulsion of Asians from the country by Idi Amin. He fled to England via Tanzania, and was able to finish his studies at Durham University, graduating with an upper-second in Economics and Politics.
In October 1974, he began his post-graduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to East Africa. He entered the University of Dar es Salaam to lecture and conduct research while pursuing his doctorate in economics. In 2009, Nkumba University, a private university based in Nkumba near Entebbe, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree in recognition of his “great contribution towards the development of Uganda’s financial sector”.
