Former UCB MD Frank Mwine passes on

Kampala. The former Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) managing director and chairman, Mr Frank Mwine, is dead, the family has confirmed to Daily Monitor.
Mwine, 73, died on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, United States. The cause of death is yet to be announced by the family.

For Ugandans, Mwine will best be remembered for his role as the managing director and chairman of Uganda Commercial Bank (now Stanbic), the largest bank in Uganda in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. This was before it was privatised in 2001.

In 1987, Mwine a lawyer left the World Bank to join UCB as the chairman and managing director.
In the book Advancing the Ugandan Economy: A Personal Account, Dr Ezra Suruma, the Makerere University Vice Chancellor revealed that in the five years Mwine was the UCB managing director, the bank expanded from 60 branches to 180 branches.

Spreading branches to rural areas was a mission Mwine took on in what was described as an opportunity to bring banking services closer to the people in rural areas.
Mwine also led UCB through the turbulent times before Suruma took-over from him in 1993. In fact during the branch expansion at UCB, the state did not provide sufficient funds to keep those branches operational for a longer period of time.

Even when he left the bank, Mwine was opposed to the privatisation of UCB, insisting that a government run bank would cater for the financial requirements of people in rural areas.

Profile
frank mwine
Age. 73
Background. Mwine attended Kyamate Primary School where he met Uganda’s current president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and former 1st Deputy Prime Minister, Eriya Kategeya (RIP). On completion, he moved to Mbarara High School for his O’levels and later Ntare School for A’level.
Education. In 1967 he got a scholarship to join the prestigious Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, United States. He studied law and on completion, he joined Havard Law School where he got a master’s degree and later a Phd.
In July 1970, he started working at the working at World Bank in Washigton D.C. rising through the ranks to Division Chief for Africa in the legal department. In 1987, he returned to Uganda where he joined UCB as the managing director.

mmuhumuza@ug.nationmedia.com