President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday commissioned the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Tower, congratulating the national tax collector on the milestone of having its own home but also urged workers there to exhibit integrity and patriotism in their work. The Shs139 billion 22-floor building was fully funded by the government.
Museveni said by constructing its own headquarters, URA has got out of the slavery of paying rent. The president urged URA top officials to get rid of corrupt workers, saying that many young people are looking for jobs.
He said he had laid the good foundation for URA by recruiting honest leaders to serve at the helm. He said corruption pushes back tax revenue collection efforts which in the end leads government to borrow in order to fund development programmes. Uganda’s public debt stands at Shs41.3 trillion.
Museveni also said all the border points must be equipped with scanners to trap hidden items in trucks. He urged URA officials to ask the Ministry of Finance for more scanners.
He urged URA to facilitate investments and businesses, saying they add to the national wealth such as farmers, manufacturers, service providers. He said URA workers are just service providers who earn salary.
The president said URA must be there to support economic growth of the country and therefore that workers there must serve clients as diligently as possible. Museveni said he knows what is happening in URA. Museveni said there should not be corruption at URA.
The URA Commissioner General (CG) Doris Akol said the building would save Sh7.4 billion annually in rent in Kampala alone. She said URA was paying One million dollars annually for its offices on Crested Towers.
Ms Akol said URA would be at the forefront of enabling Uganda fund its development agenda through tax mobilisation and that the agency has a tax revenue collection surplus of Shs380 billion.
She said the agency would continue to be centre of excellence in service delivery and draw then link between tax revenue collection and revenue accountability through a publication of “My Taxes Work Publication”.
Dr. Simon Kagugube URA Board Chairman said the project would have a positive impact on revenue performance and that the board would continue to make a conducive environment for the CG and her management team to give best services.
State Minister for Finance David Bahati also said the building would reduce the cost of revenue collection among other objectives like a conducive working environment.
Minister Bahati also urged URA officials to serve with integrity, saying that the corrupt ones would be dealt with.
He said Uganda’s tax to GDP ratio was at 14 percent, not good enough for national development.
The launch of the building was attended by government officials, diplomats, religious leaders, MPs ministers as well as some of the taxpayers.
The building
The benefits of the building to URA are; saving administration and operational costs of over four billion Shillings in a year. For instance rent, utility bills. One stop service center that will reduce the cost of doing business for the Taxpayers by over 50 percent among others.
Furthermore specialized services are now pooled together to offer timely service thus; investigators, tax auditors, valuation experts, litigators, debt collectors, IT services, policy and business analyst etc. This will reduce repeat works and referral.
The tower has a building automation system to manage lighting, water, security, firefighting and air conditioning yet it’s also designed to use more of the natural cooling and ventilation through a central atrium.
Located in Nakawa, the state-of-the-art building is divided into four podiums and eighteen tower floors totaling to 26,021 square metres. It is perhaps the tallest building in Kampala and Uganda. Carrying 22 floors, and completed in a period of just under four years, the building can accommodate up to 1700 staff, the maximum sitting capacity.
Technical team on the building construction were mostly Ugandans while furniture used was locally sources to support by Buy Uganda, build Uganda Policy.
URA officials say in the first month of moving to the URA Tower, they have registered improvement in tax payer and staff engagement, coordination of service delivery and enterprise resource management for instance bandwidth, fleet, utilities, security.
URA has been the only revenue administration body in the EAC Region without a befitting head offices.
Growth of tax revenue collections
Uganda’s tax collections have grown from Shs5 billion in 1986/97 to just over Shs15 trillion in 2017/18. The tax revenue collected is used to fund the national budget’s recurrent and development expenditure. For instance government has tabled Shs32 trillion 2018/19 budget.