The Inspector General of Government (IGG ) led by Ms. Beti Kamya is Investigating Uganda’s tax body –Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) for alleged corruption, fraudulent transactions that are making government lose revenues in billions leading to short fall in tax revenue collections .
For the current FY 2022/2023,t URA already has a set target to collect Ug.shs29.7 trillion . It is not clear whether the tax body will meet its collection targets if the said corruption tendencies still exist at the institution .
Parliament has already expressed concern at the poor performance of URA- yet government wants to reduce the national debt burden by increasing local revenue generation.
The public is also not happy with URA’s targeted and deepening tax collection methods- where a small catchment pool of compliant tax payers are over taxed instead of widening the tax base by having as many Ugandans and businesses meet their tax liabilities .
This after parliament appropriating billions of shillings to URA to improve its methods of work .
Ms Beti Kamya, the Inspector General of Government (IGG), has since told the media that her office has 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,” Kamya stated .
Meanwhile, a former Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) tax officer, Dennis Tumusiime was remanded to Luzira prison for allegedly causing government a financial loss of over Shs 9 billion.
Tumusiime, 43, was remanded by the Anti Corruption court on six charges of abuse of office and causing financial loss.
