Atingi-Ego named BOU governor, Nuwagaba deputy

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President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Dr Michael Atingi-Ego as the next governor of the Bank of Uganda (BOU) and Prof. Augustus Nuwagaba, an international consultant on economic transformation, as his deputy.

Finance state minister for general duties, Henry Musasizi, confirmed the development on Monday, February 10, 2025.

“Yes, the President has appointed them,” he told New Vision when contacted.

Prof. Augustus Nuwagaba. (Courtesy photo)

The Central Bank has been operating without a substantive governor since Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile died on January 23, 2022. 

The BOU Act as amended says in the absence of the governor the deputy governor takes charge and so Atingi-Ego, who started serving as deputy governor on April 23, 2020, has been in charge.

Mutebile, who served as BOU governor and chairman of its board of directors from 2001, died a day before President Museveni fully opened the economy for business after nearly two years of the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

There is no prescribed time within which the President must appoint the governor who, analysts say, is both a person but more so an institution.

“He does executive administrative functions as chief executive officer or managing director of the central bank but also chairs the monetary policy committee, which as a committee, is not a person,” Dr Fred Muhumuza, a senior economics lecturer at Makerere University, told New Vision recently.

He explained that the governor is largely responsible for the core business of the BOU, which is “the formulation and implementation of monetary policy as well as regulating and supervising financial institutions”.

Its mission was broadened to include the anticipated goal of socio-economic transformation, which analysts say is the basis for “promoting price stability and a sound financial system” that has been the main focus of the BOU.