URA Seeks UGX 196.8Bn for Contact Center, Land Acquisition

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has petitioned Parliament’s Finance Committee for an additional budget of Shillings 196.8 billion to establish a contact centre, staff capacity development centre and tax academy land acquisition.

URA has been allocated a budget of Shillings 438.25 billion for the coming financial year 2020/2021 out of the required 635.1 billion leaving a funding gap of 196.8 billion. 

According to documents presented to the committee chaired by Rubanda East MP Henry Musasizi, URA needs Shillings 4 billion for land acquisition and architectural designs for the URA Academy, 1 billion for a physical fitness centre, daycare and saloon, 84.5 billion for staff maintenance and capacity development, 2 billion for access control security equipment, 24.1 billion for movement of data centre to new building and others.

The others are 3.5 billion for a Contact Centre, 1.8 billion for strategy alignment and enterprise evaluations, 75 billion for five scanners, 500 million for drones, body bugs and cameras for customs enforcement operations, 290 million for staff uniforms and others.

The Commissioner-General Doris Akol on Tuesday justified the need for additional funding saying that without money for strategy alignment, it would affect risk management and delay the planned initiatives with regard to large data management and tapping into digital reforms for tax purposes.

She also noted the need for a contact centre saying that if not funded, it would hinder taxpayer service management, communication and response to client queries.

Akol also emphasized the need for access control security equipment saying that their absence could increase risks at the URA headquarters premises. She also noted that security of data would be compromised.

She said that insufficient funding has posed challenges to the institution during the current 2019/2020 financial year something that the tax body should not experience in the coming financial year in order to achieve its targets.

Finance Committee Chairperson noted that his committee was to discuss the URA budget and other policy measures on Tuesday next week with officials from the Ministry of Finance.