Ms. Deborah Owino is the supervising engineer of the construction projects at the government owned Lira UTC located in Lira municipality. Owino is a former student of the college and prides herself in the opportunity of free education which has seen her contribute to her school and the community at large.
This and many other success stories of revenue contribution towards provision of services to the people of Uganda have been unlocked in the Tujenge bus caravan traversing six districts of Jinja, Iganga, Mbale, Soroti, Lira and Gulu. Social service centers especially in education, health care, transport networks, trade facilitation spots among others were visited.
The reception of bus from the public showed nothing short of excitement as numbers converged to take a look at what they referred to as “our bus”. However, only a few spectators could be accommodated in alignment with the SOPs.
The bus is intended to serve as a fully-fledged mobile office that will travel and camp in areas where URA does not have permanent presence to ensure that the taxpayers have periodic access to URA services. Currently, URA has 76 stations including compliance centers. These can only do so much especially now that the organisation is looking to expand the taxpayer register to 2.2 million by the end of the FY 2021/22.
The caravan serves as a boost for the URA at 30 celebrations making pit stops at prime government projects to promote revenue contribution to development but also allow staff in the combed area stations appreciate what and how the bus will operate.
The new mobile office will be a key tax education tool given its public address system abilities, a lounge for discussions, the outdoor screen which will have videos teaching taxpayers on how to go about URA processes like registration and return filing. URA plans to Procure two more buses to further intensify tax education and outreach services.
In his end of year message, the URA Commissioner General John R. Musinguzi emphasised that the institution is strategically prioritising tax education as a key initiative in revenue mobilisation for this financial year. The priority areas of this element are comprehensive media tax education activations, mobile bus tax offices, simplified sector based tax information among others.
The bus is expected to comb other parts of the country through the districts of Central, West Nile, Western and South Western regions.
By Florence Namuganza, Media Management
