By James Abola
The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is entrusted with the sacred mandate of mobilizing revenue for Uganda’s economic development. The effective execution of this mandate requires a high level of trust and as such URA is committed to zero tolerance for corruption.
One of the measures that URA use to assess organizational health is the Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Over the 21 months period (January 2023 to October 2024), the URA CPI improved by 20 percent indicating a positive trend in the organization ‘s efforts to combat corruption.
Understanding the Corruption Perception Index is driven by four key factors as categorized below;
Actual experience of corruption by URA clients. There are clients who have experienced corruption in the process of obtaining services from URA. These experiences could be recent or even in the past and help inform the corruption perception that the clients have towards URA.
Imputed corruption. This includes actions by URA staff and actions of third parties who are related to URA services that clients perceive as corrupt.
For example, clients might interpret delays in service as attempt to force them to pay bribes. Even if the service delay is due to valid reasons that have nothing to do with corruption.
Corrupt actions by third parties who are related to URA services may also be imputed as corruption by URA. Categories of third parties who work closely with URA include Tax Agents, Clearing Agents, Consolidators/Container Leaders; Internet Cafe operators (who aid TIN registration).
The narrative that URA is corrupt. At times, baseless claims of corruption have been made and justified by the saying: “there is no smoke without fire.” While it’s true that some smoke is caused by fire; there is also disco smoke which is not created by fire. Some of the factors that influence the narrative that URA is corrupt, include actual experiences of corruption (in the present or past) for example; poor service quality that clients may interpret as attempts to solicit bribes, the actions of malicious individuals both within and outside URA and failure by URA to effectively articulate its anti corruption efforts and achievements.
Although, the improvement in URA ‘s CPI is a positive step towards a more transparent and accountable organization, there is still room for URA to work with partners to eradicate the remaining corruption risks.
Look out for subsequent articles that will detail different measures URA has put in place to combat the vice and enhance integrity.
The author is the URA Assistant Commissioner for Integrity Compliance and Ethics.
Email: ignite@ura.go.ug or cim@ura.go.ug. Tel. +256772141075/323442055.
