"This budget supports taxpayers who are recovering from the after-effects of COVID-19. For industrialists and entrepreneurs, it improves the environment within which you are operating. It aims to lower the cost of doing business, reduce the time spent transporting goods, including agricultural produce from farm to markets. It also ensures that what you produce and manufacture is competitive in regional and global export markets," said finance Minister Matia Kasaija.
Kasaija said that government has increased import duties on goods that are produced or can be produced locally. The import duty on agricultural products has been increased to 60 percent and other products to 35 percent.”
Margaret Kakande, the head of the Budget Monitoring Unit (BMAU) at the Ministry of Finance, said the government will step back on sectors like tourism, giving it limited resources because it is now next to impossible to attract any visitors.
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija said the company will start working in July and is expected to help the government realize more revenues from the sector. He urged the Property owners not to feel agitated and think that the government is trying to squeeze them.”
Companies whose income is less than Shs 500m a year will be allowed to delay payment of corporation taxes by six months. The country will waive interest on tax arrears to lessen businesses’ tax liability obligations to the government.
Of the approved budget, a sum of 11.922 trillion Shillings has been appropriated by parliament for Recurrent expenditure for Central government, Referral hospitals, Foreign missions and Local governments. Another 18.07 trillion Shillings is reserved for Development expenditure while 15.49 is statutory expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund.
Some of the proposed measures include; excise duty of 1,115 Shillings per liter on beer produced from barley grown and malted in Uganda, excise duty of 1,700 Shillings per liter on ready to drink spirits, 2,050 Shillings per liter on malt beer, excise duty of 1,350 Shillings per liter on gasoline, 300 Shillings per liter on kerosene, and 1,030 Shillings per liter on gas oil and others.
In the framework paper, the Finance Minister sets a new tax revenue target of Shillings 21.54 trillion up from Shillings 20.4 trillion in the current financial year to enable financing of the 2020/2021 budget.
Kasaija, who spoke at the 2019 public procurement sector performance review conference in Kampala on Thursday, said at times government signs for loans for projects before the procurement process, money lies idle on the account for years as government agencies move back of forth trying to finish the process to award the contract.
Details of the commitment have been presented to the Commercial Court, where a consultancy firm, Land Coin Limited dragged the church, in pursuit of a 7.3 billion Shillings payment for its services. The Church contracted the company in 2015 to verify the extent of interest on a piece of land housing certain government offices in Entebbe.
This follows a dispute between the Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, and former Custodian Board Secretary Bernard Tumwesigire, who presented a Custodian Board Stamp Instead of a Seal, saying it is what he was using since his appointment in 2009.
Kasaija said he expects the committee to work in the best interests of the country bearing in mind that this resource is exhaustible in the next two to 25 years.
The Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee has directed the Attorney General, William Byaruhanga to give an opinion on whether the proposed National Local Content Bill, 2019 conflicts with the regional Protocol.
Kasaija told the committee chaired by Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu that before the bank closure, he raised Sudhir on phone urging him to sell some off some of his properties and not to let the bank sink. The Minister said that Sudhir did not heed to his advice responding that he was tired of the bank.
The statement was in response to a report released last week by the Auditor General, indicating that the rate at which Uganda is borrowing is worrying and unfavorable because the debt repayment does not match the countrys revenue collection.
URN has learnt that NOTUs nominees were rejected by the Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority URBRA as unfit for the job. But according to Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, NOTU has been advised to nominate more of preferably female candidates, whose names will be sent to URBRA for vetting and appointment, if approved.
Kasaija told Uganda Radio Network after inaugurating the 11th NSSF board on Tuesday that he made the recommendation of 15 percent after a deep study. Kasaija said the money was available and its owners were existing.
The NSSF board is comprised of 10 members. The new board was inaugurated without two NOTU representatives. Kasaija re-appointed Patrick Byabakama Kaberenge as chairman.
In line with the directive, parliament reduced the controversial tax in October. However, a month since the amendment, operators have maintained a 1 percent charge on mobile money withdrawals.
