Ground Report

Despite the global economic downturn the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is moving to increase the salaries pad to its employees in a bid to improve its “operational efficiency”

The tax body which has the some of the highest paid employees on the government payroll submitted a proposal to the Ugandan parliament last week in which it seeks a 16% increment to its employee’s salaries.

The URA bags 107.9 billion Uganda shillings for its running costs and if this proposal is approved, it will imply that 76,932,700,000 (71.3%of their running budget) Uganda shillings will be spent on the URA salaries.

In a country where the average citizen lives on less than a dollar a day, where in the recent past more than ten people in certain regions have died of starvation, one wonders whether it is justifiable to make the rich even richer at the expense of the starving multitudes.

Ms Allen Kagina, the URA Commissioner General argued that, “URA lost 110 skilled and experienced staff to the private sector in the financial year 2008/09… Further loss of staff is expected to affect operational efficiency of the URA". The proposal to increase staff salaries is meant to control the loss of skilled and experienced workforce to the better paying private sector.

The tax body, which registered a tax revenue shortfall of Shs188 billion last year and is also said to be one of the most corrupt government bodies.

The sad part is that whereas the entire Ugandan parliament ought to dismiss a proposal like this, the only vehement opposition to this proposition so far has come from mainly opposition Members of parliament. Led by Chwa MP, Livingstone Okello-Okello (Uganda Peoples Congress) and Kampala Central MP Elias Lukwago (Democratic Party), they last week threatened to block the proposal.  “Our economy is doing badly and we are collecting less revenue, not due to lack of skilled staff, but because of the financial crisis… It will be irrational for us to increase URA salaries by Shs7.8 billion yet we are collecting less and our people have no drugs in hospitals. We cannot fix the realities of the financial crisis by rewarding URA executives.” Mr. Okello-Okello argued.

This year, the finance ministry raised the URA’s tax revenue target from the Shs3.9 trillion to Shs4.4 trillion.

Ironically as the URA asks for staff salary increments, the National Health Service Commission will not be able to recruit the 1,000 health workers its needs this financial year for lack of funding. Furthermore the national budget this year slashed about 3.4 billion off the main national hospital (Mulago Hospital) budget, yet the hospital is in dire need of these funds.
I wonder… Where did we lose our way… and our priorities?