*THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GOVERNOR PROF EMMANUEL TUMUSIIME MUTEBILE*
Uganda’s banking giant and the longest serving Bank of Uganda Governor Prof Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile passed on morning at the Aghakhan Hospital in Nairobi Kenya after a long illness.
At 72 years he has been on life support and in and out of hospital .
A celebrated Ugandan economist, a banker and Makerere University alumni Mutebile a long term confidant of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni was appointed Central Bank Governor on 1 January 2001 and he has served at the helm for a record 21 years .
A nonsense negotiator Prof. Mutebile is largely credited for Uganda’s financial stability, a robust banking sector and sound economic policies -having successfully managed numerous financial reforms adopted by the Uganda government at the urging of the central bank during the 1990s and the first decade of President Museveni’s rule .
A seasoned professional economist and reformer, he spearheaded the design and implementation of the Economic Reform Program that restored Uganda from the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s to sound economic performance during his service as the Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the Treasury in the ministry responsible for finance, planning, and economic development.
He worked as a consultant for multilateral and regional organizations including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of East and Central Africa, UK Department for International Development, the North South Institute in Canada, and for the governments of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Eritrea, and Nepal.
He was a member of the High Level Panel of the UNDP for the production of the Human Development Report of the UNDP; the Management Group for overseeing the evaluation of the implementation of the Comprehensive Development Framework of the World Bank in 2001; and the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons to advise the President of the African Development Bank on the strategic future of the African Development Bank in 2006.
He held Fellowships of the World Bank Institute, and Rotary Foundation of Rotary International and was educated at Makerere University, Durham University, and Oxford University.
Prof muteile was an Honorary Professor of Makerere University, an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy of Nkumba University, a Companion of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management (CPTM), and a Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) of Bishop Stuart University.
Makerere University which will be marking 100 years later this year recently honoured Prof. Mutebile with the establishment of the Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile Chair of Monetary Policy, Banking and Finance; and the Tumusiime-Mutebile
*Early Life and Education*
Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile was born on 27, January 1949 in Kabale District, Western Uganda to a peasant’s family of nine children.
Tumusiime Mutebile attended Kigezi College Butobere for his O-Level studies (grade S1-S4) after he joined Makerere College School in Kampala for his A-level studies (grades S5-S6).
In 1970, he joined Makerere University, where he was elected president of the University Students’ Guild.
In 1972, Mutebile was forced to flee Uganda after he gave a speech publically 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 Bachelor of Science in Economics and politics.
In October 1974, he began his post-graduate studies of Master of Science in Economics at Balliol College, Oxford University, 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 along Entebbe road, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Philosophy Degree in recognition of his “great contribution towards the development of Uganda’s financial sector”.
*CAREER*
Between the year 1979 and 1984, Tumusiime-Mutebile was appointed to several government positions in Uganda ranging from deputy principal secretary to the president at State House in 1979, to undersecretary in the ministry of planning in 1981 where he rose to senior economist and then chief economist in 1984. In 1992, he was appointed permanent secretary to the newly combined ministry of finance planning & economic development, a merger that he had advocated while working under Minister of Finance Gerald Ssendaula.
He is the longest-serving chief executive in the Bank of Uganda’s history. He is credited with many of the sound economic policies adopted by the Uganda government at the urging of the central bank during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.
*OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES*
Since 2006, he has been a visiting professor in the Department of Economics at Makerere University, the oldest and largest university in Uganda. Tumusiime-Mutebile was the chancellor of the International University of East Africa, a private university established in 2011, with an urban campus in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.