KAMPALA – The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) says investigations by the Inspectorate of Government into the tax system will help to boost the fight against corruption and lack of integrity.
Mr. Ibrahim Bbosa Kibuuka URA’s Spokesperson and Assistant Commissioner Public and Corporate Affairs told PML Daily that the current URA management is transparent and that it has nothing to hide from investigators.
Bbosa also dismissed a fresh wave of old allegations as outrageous—saying that some of the regurgitated claims have since been comprehensively investigated by the new administration and handled with tighter controls.
“Some of the allegations that have appeared in the media are outrageous, some issues being reported happened in the past, and the current administration has unearthed them, and we welcome anybody interested in knowing how we are dealing with them,” Mr. Bbosa told PML Daily on Friday.
He added: “Our prayer is that the media and investigators do not destroy an important institution that supports the nation. If only these matters could be handled carefully so that the institution’s performance is not affected. It will be nice, as part of the investigations, to also take a look at the performance of the initiatives in place to boost our fight against corruption and lack of integrity.”
He said the current administration is committed to transforming URA into a high-performing agency that delivers the best possible services to all taxpayers.
He said URA has since put in place internal measures including Change and Culture Transformation initiative, to ensure all staff live with integrity, exude patriotism and always serve professionally.
“The URA Board has strengthened the internal compliance function by elevating the Staff Compliance Section to a Division under the Commissioner General’s Office. The Division is tasked with the responsibility of enhancing internal compliance and safeguarding the reputation of URA,” he said—listing a litany of policies to guide staff including; URA Code of Conduct, URA Offence Schedule, Lifestyle Audit Policy, the Anti-fraud & Corruption Policy, which addresses fraud, giving & receipt of gifts, the Prevention of Sexual Harassment & Abuse of Authority Policy.
“In addition, taxpayers can also report cases of poor integrity among taxpayers, and if the reports yield revenue, taxpayers may be rewarded for helping URA recover undeclared or unremitted taxes,” he said.
Bbosa was reacting to reports after the Inspectorate of Government said it was launching a probe into alleged tax leaks including unbridled corruption, gross abuse of office and tax evasion at URA which could have caused a loss of hundreds of billions of shillings.
Without giving details, Ms Beti Kamya, the Inspector General of Government (IGG), reportedly told Daily Monitor that she had launched investigations into the [mis]management of URA following the whistleblower’s alarm.
“We did receive a detailed whistleblower’s account of a number of things going on in URA and we started investigations, but I will not give details because it may undermine the integrity of the investigations,” the IGGis quoted by Daily Monitor as saying.
URA performance, integrity level
A recent comprehensive integrity survey 2023 indicates that the taxman scored 57.4% from the usual 48.7 percent, an improvement of over 9% in a short spell..
Bbosa says three of their officers who cost them colossal amounts in revenue have since been arrested and charged and 63 staff dismissed and prosecuted since 2020.
“Now, I believe those who practice and benefit from corruption are mainly few but tarnish the name of everyone in the organisation, whether corrupt or not because we belong to that one URA family.”
Bbosa commended taxpayers for their continued contribution towards the growth of the country’s revenue collection despite the struggles of businesses and economic hardships coupled with the pandemic.
The URA has been given a revenue collection target of UGX 29.3 trillion for the next financial year of 2023/2024.
The UGX29.3 trillion target for 2023/2024, from sh25.5 trillion target for the current financial year of 2022/2023 means that an extra sh3.8 trillion would have to be collected next financial year.
For the current FY 2022/2023, he revealed that URA’s target is shs24.5 trillion and at the end of March, they are performing at 97%.
“The current growth as of the end of March is 18.3%. This number is subject to improvement as we await a monthly report this week. We still have 8.2 trillion to cover.”
In 2021/2022, he said the target was shs23.3 trillion and shs21.66 trillion was collected with a growth of 12%.
“Well, this is a performance of an organisation described as ‘sinking to it’s lowest’ in the history or revenue mobilisation.”
In the year FY 2020/2021, during the COVID-19 lock down, Bbosa said URA target was shs21.2 trillion, and the actual collection was 19.62 Trillion.
Looking at the statistics, the target for FY 2019/2020 was shs20.34 trillion and the collection was 16.7 Trillion.
“Therefore, the performance was 82.34% and compared to the previous year, there was a slight increase in growth of less than 1%”.
