Former Uganda Cranes captain Andy Mwesigwa has appealed to President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, CDF General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Ministry of Education and Sports, and the Ministry of Finance to intervene with the bank coraboration with Big people in football to take his school.
Mwesigwa said that after saving with Equity Bank for some time, the bank offered to lend him money. He agreed, and the debt eventually reached 380 million shillings.
In 2019, he was approached by ABC Bank, which bought his debt from Equity Bank, provided a top-up of 100 million shillings, and brought the total debt to 480 million shillings.
He said that although they reached an agreement in December 2019 he received the funds in January and February 2020 just weeks before President Museveni placed the country under lockdown for two years due to COVID-19.
During the lockdown, President Museveni ordered banks to suspend interest on loans given to schools, but the bank kept increasing the interest on Mwesigwa’s loan.
When schools resumed operations, he paid all the accumulated interest but He was shocked when the bank opted to write off the loan, then instructed him to continue paying while raising the interest rate from 21% to 30%.
Amidst the struggle for payment, he stated that the bank put Andy Mwesigwa Education School of Comprehensive (AMESCO) on the market, and it has been in advertisement on three occasions.
After the latest school advertisement and auctioning, Andy Mwesigwa stop lone servicing and fled to the Commercial Court but he was told to pay 30% of the 1.3 billion that the bank claimed within one month which is two weeks away, and then pay another billion one year from the date it was set to expire.
The school is located in Bugwanya, Kakiri, in Wakiso District, near Kikubampanga, and sits on 15 acres of land. It teaches students from Senior One to Senior Six and hosts a number of students who pay school fees.
Among the students are some who are talented in sports, especially football, while four others come from families who lack the financial capacity to support their children’s education.
Andy Mwesigwa was speaking at the Jevine Hotel on August 12, accompanied by his wife and the school bursar, Doreen Mwesigwa Nakintu and former actors Mike Sulaiman Mutyana and Robert Mukasa.
Andy Mwesigwa remains played and captained SC Villa in the local league before flewing out of the country for IBV in Iceland and latter had stints in China and Kazakstan while on National team he served 13 years between 2003 to 2016 as a played and captain in later career.