to look forward to, and prepare to face the challenges of the future. at the core of the bank ’ s statutory mandate is monetary policy and financial regulation. in the coming decades, our monetary policy will continue to prioritise, above all else, the control of inflation. bis central bankers ’ speeches this is because low and stable inflation is a precondition for mobilising high levels of savings and investment and for efficient resource allocation, which are essential for sustained economic growth. along with other central banks around the world, the bank of uganda prioritises the control of inflation because it is the only institution within the country, which has the tools to do this, through its monetary policy. for most of the last 25 years uganda has enjoyed relatively low inflation, averaging approximately 6 percent per annum. that achievement would not have been possible had the bank not put inflation at the forefront of its monetary policy objectives. bank regulation and supervision must constantly evolve to meet new challenges arising from the structure and technology of the financial services industry. in the coming decades, the financial services industry will be transformed by information technology. this has already started to happen with the advent of mobile money. it is also likely that cross border banking will become even more important than it is today, especially where institutional arrangements such as the east african common market enable services to be traded freely across borders. the priority objectives of our bank supervision will remain the protection of depositors and the preservation of financial system stability. a key challenge for the bank will be to ensure that the introduction of new financial products and new ways of delivering financial products, which will be made possible by technological innovations and which offer immense benefits to customers, can be achieved in a manner that is consistent with our key prudential objectives. in addition, the increasing importance of cross border banking means that effective bank supervision in uganda will not be possible without close collaboration with our counterparts in other countries. economic integration in east africa is vital for uganda ’ s long term prospects for development. the east african community ( eac ) partner states have a three - phase programme for economic integration in the region, which involves : first, the customs union ; second, the common market ; and, third, the monetary union. the bank has been an active participant in the preparations for eac monetary union under the monetary affairs committee of the regional central banks. monetary union will be very challenging to implement effectively, and we must study and heed the lessons to be learned from the difficulties faced by

a task for management to create a culture based on responsibility and decency and to ensure that employees contribute actively to that agenda. in denmark, we basically trust our institutions and firms and each other. but when this trust is broken, we cannot simply lean back and wait for it to be restored. that requires an effort. trust is something we earn. and in this respect the financial sector has its task cut out. it is by no means all banks that misbehave, presumably it is only a few and perhaps only in certain respects. but a breach of trust rubs off on the whole sector. * * * * * * * * * lenin said, " trust is good, control is better ". i prefer to say that trust is good – in fact it is a precondition – but control is necessary. that is why the quality of such control matters. and you, the auditors, play a special role as the trusted representatives of society in general. that role must be undertaken with credibility and integrity as the whole purpose of conducting audits is to support trust in the information published. so you have a very important role. there is a price to be paid if the quality of an auditor's work is not good enough. and we all know that that is sometimes the case. we have seen cases where the disciplinary board on auditors ( revisornævnet ) has im - page 6 of 8 posed fines on auditors for having acted contrary to good auditing practices. sometimes there may be a discrepancy between, on the one hand, general expectations regarding an auditor's work and, on the other hand, legislative requirements. in a court of law it can be difficult to prove that an auditor has not observed good auditing practices. it can only be hoped that the scope and quality of audits in the vast majority of cases go well beyond the legislative requirements. in this respect self - checks and quality controls by the authorities are both important tools for ensuring trust in auditors. it is also important that you, the auditors, stay focused on your core task – audit – and do not give lower priority to audit quality in favour of consultancy services – although they may appear to be more profitable in the short term. the relationship between a firm and its auditor is a client relationship. this involves an inherent conflict between the auditor's wish to meet the customer's expectations and the role as the trusted representative of society in general. your