Economic crime is a major threat to efforts by developing countries to collect taxes and achieve self-sufficiency, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Commissioner General, Mr John Rujoki Musinguzi, has said.
According to Mr Musinguzi, economic crime, which is manifested through corruption, money laundering, smuggling, terrorism financing and tax evasion is even perpetuated by legitimate companies.
“Resources that could support a country’s development are lost through economic crime such as corruption, money laundering, smuggling, terrorism financing and tax evasion among others,” he said.
“The prevention and detection of the economy is further challenged by the country’s digital economy that continues to spur, the average Ugandan consumer is increasingly getting connected, with 42% of the population in Uganda now connected to the Internet (19 million),” Mr Musinguzi added.
He was speaking on Thursday, May 27, 2021, during a symposium on Economic Crime at Kampala Serena Hotel held under the theme ‘Shaping Today’s Intelligence to Tackle Tomorrow’s Threats.’
The URA boss explained that the overall objective of the symposium was to develop a strategic framework that will drive an integrated and collaborative approach, entailing the consolidation of the different law enforcement and security agencies tasked with fighting economic crimes.
“For all these institutions that you have seen, there is an existing collaboration. We work with the army in enforcement, we work with the police in investigations, we work with Immigration at the border and entry points to collect revenue and scan what is coming into the country, we work with the DPP for prosecution, we work with URSB for registering entities, we work with the Bank of Uganda (that’s where we deposit the revenue we collect on a daily basis, we work with the State House Anti-Corruption as we get rid of corruption in the institution, we work day to day with all these agencies that we have convened here but the purpose of this symposium is that we can’t put our heads together and see how to take this collaborations to the next level,” Musinguzi said.
The Internal Affairs Minister, Gen. Jeje Odong, urged all government agencies to work together to defeat economic crimes.
The government has set up the Internal Security Organization Economic Desk, Police Cybercrime Unit, the Financial Intelligence Authority, and the Anti-Corruption Court as part of efforts to fight economic crime.
“One of the institutions that provide a significant amount of information to URA is NIRA. If NIRA does not collaborate with URA, then many individuals who may have tax obligations can go unnoticed. URA must therefore be able to link up with information and data available in NIRA for that purpose. If a crime is identified, URA in itself may not have the capacity to investigate. So, it must depend on the investigative arms of the government like the intelligence agencies as well as the CID department of police,” Gen Odongo explained.