Government has pledged that no new taxes will be introduced considering that Ugandans are struggling to keep afloat as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Permanent Secretary at the Finance ministry, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, said instead of introducing new taxes, the government will shift its energies into mooting measures that will enable tax collection and compliance agencies to make Ugandans remit their taxes without fail.
He said majority of taxes government introduced, some have not yielded the intended goal because few are compliant and the majority still evade.
“You know tax is something which is very fair, you don’t pay tax if you aren’t making profits. But people haven’t being paying this time around, we are going to ensure compliance instead of introducing, because new taxes tend to fall on the same people who are compliant, you are like punishing them fort being complaint, now we want to fish out those who don’t pay,” Mr Ggoobi said.
He was addressing journalists under the Uganda Parliamentary Press Association at a budget strategy sensitisation workshop on Friday in Kampala.
Already as one of the major strategies, government has slashed Shs203 Billion from a minimum of 100 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The money slashed was meant to cater for meetings, conferences and foreign trips.
Major cuts are seen in the Ministry of Finance where Shs25 Billion were sliced and Shs24 Billion was cut off Parliament’s budget.
This since been lauded by a section of the public and members within the sectors that were affected by the cuts.
Ms Cissy Kagaba, the Executive Director, Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU) supports the decision but instead demands that government ensures that the money is channelled to serve the intended purposes.
Mr Bradford Ochieng, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) said the decision has since triggered players in the tourism sector to be more innovate to drive reap from it.
“What we have to do we just have to re-innovate where people used to travel to other destinations, then we have to rethink. For instance, we have to use our embassies in foreign countries,” Mr Ochieng said.
He added: “So it has helped us to rethink inward and use local efforts market the sector. We can use local media to relay information to Ugandans so that they can promote domestic tourism.”
Mr Allan Ssempebwa, the Spokesperson of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) said the entity will have to adjust and focus on delivering on their mandate using the available resources as allotted to them by government.