The Uganda Revenue Authority has established a division to fight against corruption within the Authority which is crawling on a daily basis.
This was revealed by the commissioner General of the authority, John Musinguzi Rujoki on Thursday while delivering his remarks during a one day KACITA-URA Business Community Tax dialogue held in Kampala which aimed at improving effective service delivery of URA.
According to the annual performance report of 2018 jointly authored by Action Aid and civil society budget advocacy group (CSBAG), Both civil society entities that have been involved in fighting the outflow, more than $3,240,000 which is Shs11.8b flows out of Uganda annually is aided by some of the corrupt border officials fueling this phenomenon referring to Uganda’s loss to illicit financial flow.
In the same vein, according to the inspectorate of government, together with the German Society for International Co-operation, through a survey conducted in various government departments sometimes back, Uganda loses money in almost each of the sectors of the economy. The survey indicates that Ugandan government loses 20 trillion Shillings every year through corruption,
According to the survey, at least 131 billion Shillings is lost through taxation, 459 billion Shillings lost in user fees utilities, another 820 billion Shillings lost in natural resources, and 15 billion Shillings lost in environmental degradation. The survey also found that two billion Shillings is lost as a result of absenteeism in government departments, 451 billion Shillings in health care and education services, 86 billion Shillings in security provision, 590 billion Shillings in procurement and budgeting, and 233 billion Shillings in regulation.
Now Musinguzi says corruption has deprived the economy due to poor service delivery and it has tarnished the name of the authority which prompted them to set up this division as a way to wipe out such culprits and improve more service delivery and expansion .
He has urged KACITA to join URA and also do the same as a collective effort to report and put in order URA officials who ask for bribes from Merchants.
“We need a collective effort as a government to fight against corruption from all its departments and agencies to build up a strong economy because corruption is like cancer in the human body’ he added.
In the same vein, he has also urged KACITA to report the authority enforcement officers who utilize powers wrongly and excessively while executing their work thus putting the authority at assessment.
Thaddeus Musoke Nagenda, the acting chairman KACITA applauded URA for its continuous engagements with Merchants to address their concerns and understand more regarding taxation which he says it’s a good initiative leading to the transformation of the economy.
Issa Ssekitto, the spokesperson of the association appealed to the authority to always engage stakeholders especially prior, during and after the introduction of new taxes and developments to also have a chance of sharing their views publicly thus enabling them to comply with.
