By Joshua Niyonshima
The International Monetary Fund ’s Regional Technical Assistance Center for Southern Africa (AFRITAC) program lauded URA’s strategy of forecasting revenue projections based on the prevailing economic situations.
“I like the fact that you are flexible in setting revenue projections for the future based on the prevailing economic conditions. In other countries we visited, there is rigidity,” said Par Jonsson a financial consultant from the IMF.
Jonsson made the remarks during an engagement between URA, Ministry of Finance and a delegation from the IMF-AFRITAC East program held at the URA headquarters in Nakawa.
His recognition followed URA’s presentation on revenue projection where they stated that prevailing economic conditions and tax head performance for a given period inform the revenue projections for the next financial period.
During the engagement, the Assistant Commissioner Finance, Diana Kisaka highlighted that URA is depending on administrative efficiencies to boost revenue collections since no taxes were introduced in the last three financial years.
“We are bringing new people on board, for small tax payers, we use modern technologies like USSD code. Other innovations include; integration of systems with sister agencies, information sharing with our partner states, automation of our systems and carrying out massive tax education to ensure voluntary compliance,” Diana stated.
Richard Kariisa, the Commissioner Corporate Services underscored the importance of such discussions noting that the ideas shared there supplement revenue collection.
AFRITAC East is a collaborative venture between the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the recipient countries and bilateral and multilateral development partners. It originated from the IMF’s response to African leaders call on the international community to increase technical assistance to Africa and focus it more on capacity building. AFRITAC East provides technical assistance and training to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania (including Zanzibar) and Uganda.
