Former Uganda Cranes captain Andy Mwesigwa has appealed to the Government and other stakeholders to intervene in a protracted financial dispute that he says threatens to strip him of AMESCO High School in Bugwanya, Kakiri, Wakiso District, a project he built from his football earnings.
Mwesigwa made the appeal on Wednesday, 12 August, during a press briefing at Jevine Hotel in Ndeeba, Kampala, where he was joined by Uganda Footballers Association president Mike Sulaiman Mutyaba, former Cranes captain Andy Mwesigwa’s wife Doreen Nakito Mwesigwa and Coach Robert Mukasa.
Mwesigwa, who captained Uganda for more than nine years, represented the national team between 2003 and 2014, making 72 international appearances and scoring seven goals.
At club level, he played for SC Villa from 2002 to 2005 before moving to Icelandic side ÍBV, China’s Chongqing Lifan, Kazakhstan’s Ordabasy, Turkish side Yenicamı Ağdelen and Vietnam’s Sài Gòn, where he ended his playing career in 2016.
He said he invested virtually all his football earnings into establishing AMESCO, which he envisioned as a lasting legacy beyond his playing career.
“All my earnings in my entire football career were channelled into a school project, AMESCO.
I bought that land in 2010 and started building for two full years. We officially opened the school in 2018,” Mwesigwa said.
However, the school was forced to close for two years following the outbreak of COVID-19, creating significant financial difficulties for the institution.
Mwesigwa said he initially secured a Sh380 million loan from Equity Bank to support the project.
He later explained that ABC Bank took over the facility and added another Sh100 million, bringing the total loan to approximately Sh480 million in January 2020.
According to Mwesigwa, when the school resumed operations in 2023, he paid Sh230 million towards the loan.
He added that the school subsequently made a further Sh40 million payment during the last term, maintaining that they have continued making payments.
Despite these payments, Mwesigwa says the bank has now presented the school with a demand running into approximately Sh1 billion, based on what he described as a disputed interest calculation.
He further claimed that the bank issued a notice indicating an interest rate of 30 percent per month, which he contrasted with what he understood to have been an initial rate of 24 percent per annum.
Mwesigwa said the dispute has had devastating consequences for AMESCO, particularly its student population.
“Over a sudden, we received a message from the bank notifying us that our loan was written off.
They then advertised our school for sale. This cost the school its population. Students have since gradually left the school,” he said.
The former Cranes and SC Villa captain also expressed concern over what he described as persistent attempts to sell the school despite his assertion that payments have continued.
He accused individuals acting as agents of the bank, including people within football circles, of attempting to take control of what he considers his life’s major investment.
“The bank has used different agents, especially those in football circles and others from different spheres, to steal my hard-earned project,” Mwesigwa alleged.
He appealed directly to President Yoweri Museveni, the Minister responsible for sports and other stakeholders to help him find an affordable solution that would enable him to retain the school.
“I appeal to the President of the Republic of Uganda, the Minister for Sports and other stakeholders to stand in for me with any affordable assistance to save my school,” Mwesigwa said.
He also criticised what he described as the writing off of his loan, arguing that the development has complicated his ability to seek alternative financing from other financial institutions.
“I condemn the act of writing off our loan. The act halts me from getting any other loans from a different financial institution,” he said.
For Mwesigwa, AMESCO represents far more than a commercial investment.
Having transitioned from a decorated football career into education, he says the school was built as a legacy project using the proceeds of his years in professional football.
He is now calling for intervention to prevent the institution from being lost amid the ongoing financial dispute, while urging the relevant authorities and stakeholders to examine the circumstances surrounding the loan, its subsequent transfer, repayments made and the current demand being presented against the school.
