By Irene Kabakama, Media Management
The URA commissioner general John Musinguzi has welcomed a team of officials from the Gambia Revenue Authority and Gambia Ministry of Finance who are in Uganda to benchmark on URA’ s Digital Tracking Solution (DTS).
Speaking to the officials, Mr. Musinguzi said despite the pandemic that derailed rolling out and enforcement of DTS, URA has seen fruits from the system with significant improvement in Local Excise Duty collections (LED).
He further added that DTS technology is effective when properly enforced with the teams in the field to confirm that the stamps applied have been activated and the tax on goods sold on the market has been paid.
Mr. Musinguzi also commended the team on choosing to benchmark from Uganda saying that they will pick from the lessons URA has learned and not go through the same challenges it did.
Sarah Chelangat Commissioner Domestic Taxes said DTS has helped widen Uganda’s tax base and improve compliance levels through getting real time data of when production occurs.
She explained that DTS facilitates collection of LED which is subsequently providing correct income tax and VAT because of the volumes of data collected and verified in real time. This has helped URA detect counterfeit products on the market which are seized and the perpetrators apprehended.
Explaining the essence of the visit, Mr. Yankuba Darboe Commissioner General GRA said Gambia is at a stage where it needs to widen the tax base to collect extra revenue and as such is focusing on areas that haven’t been fully exploited.
He added that digitalization is the way to go to increase revenue, end dependence on western countries and start looking at how to partner with them.
Mr. Musinguzi welcomed the remarks expressing confidence in DTS citing the example of Tanzania where the system has successfully been implemented with significant improvement in tax collections.
More countries including Angola, South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia, Sudan, South Sudan, Niger, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guinea Conakry, Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania have equally sent delegations to Uganda to benchmark on URA’s tax administration systems ranging from automation of processes to learning of new initiatives being implemented by URA to increase revenue collection.
