#OutToLunch Ongoing URA changes should address SME challenges

By Denis Jjuuko

Over the weekend, several senior managers at the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) tendered in their resignations ostensibly to pursue other careers. Social media as is usually the case went overboard with some people claiming it was a purge that the officers didn’t choose to resign rather forced to do so.

URA issued a statement saying the board made recommendations concerning the “reorganization and management” but “some senior officials chose to resign and the board accepted their resignation.” There is nothing new in mass resignations in organisations following an appointment of a new boss.

However, what concerned me was the statement, which talked about “reorganization and management of URA” though my concern isn’t merely in the personnel, those can always be replaced. The way URA works is what needs to change and I hope the “reorganization and management” will consider small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

There is a need to change or push to change the many taxes that end up strangling small businesses. The income tax rate is at 30%, excise duty at 15%, withholding tax at 6% and VAT at 18%. All these taxes may be fine for large organisations, but for small companies, they are a death sentence. So imagine a company that gets a Shs100m contract, runs to the bank to get a loan to execute the assignment and the loan is granted at 24%. If they pay all those taxes and the interest fee, what do they remain with?

But before the company even gets a contract, it must submit a tax clearance certificate (TCC). Some years ago, URA people sat in a boardroom and came up with an ingenious idea —TCC must be issued per a bid. So if you are bidding for work in Company A today, you apply for a TCC that goes to Company A and if tomorrow you need to make another bid to Company B, you apply for another TCC. Never mind that you just got a TCC a day before. The funny thing is that today URA can issue you a TCC and tomorrow they can reject to give you one. I don’t know what makes URA issue a TCC today and refuse to issue another tomorrow.

This process of applying a TCC per bid is another cost for SMEs because many rely on external consultants to process these certificates for them. Why doesn’t URA issue a TCC for say six months or one year? If they fear that SMEs will forge them, they can a create verification system. If people can quickly verify in whose name is a vehicle registered at URA, why can’t they verify whether a TCC is genuine or not?

Taxes like VAT should also be reformed where SMEs don’t have to pay URA once an invoice is issued rather when they have been paid. I know there is an option for this but its administration is even more complicated than paying URA before a company is paid because you must have paid all your VAT before you allowed this option. Where does an SME get the money to pay taxes for money it is not sure will be paid on top of servicing loans at crazy rates?

URA sometime back introduced a very good system where some types of businesses are charged a set rate as income tax. They call it a presumptive tax. Businesses like salons pay this rate instead of self-assessments. The figure payable is set regardless of the profit made. I think this is a very good way of taxing SMEs. However, they left out many businesses that could pay more taxes if they were asked to pay a fixed rate. Self-assessments are cumbersome to both the small taxpayers and URA. The URA needs many staff to look at documents before they accept that the self-assessment is correct. Many times, URA refuses self-assessments and institutes charges that are way above what an SME made in a year. That involves a lot of back and forth before the tax is paid if ever paid. There is a need to widen businesses that pay a presumptive tax rate but also consider the size of business. The other alternative is to have an income limit where, for example, if the business earns less than a certain amount a year is allowed to pay a presumptive tax than going through the cumbersome processes of self-assessment. This will reduce the number of companies filing zero profits and therefore paying nothing in income tax.

Also, URA needs to handle SMEs differently. For example, the assessment forms for Withholding Tax exemptions shouldn’t be the same for all taxpayers. A simple form for a small business is sufficient whereas, for the largest taxpayers, they can have a form that fits their size.

As URA was issuing statements about its staff resignations, MTN was issuing another regarding a tax case involving Shs326 billion which the telecom giant questioned in court. The assessment came to Shs24 billion but MTN further appealed to the Tax Appeals Tribunal. To cut the long story short, MTN got an interim order against the enforcement of URA notices. MTN as a large company can afford silver-tongued lawyers and appeal even for 20 years but SMEs can’t. A mere lack of a TCC is a disqualification from a potential contract. Excessive assessments from URA simply lead to heart attacks for the owners and closure of the business. URA enforcement officers also love small companies — they quickly attach bank accounts, put padlocks on the premises and such other things. For the big boys, they simply sit on the table or go to court.

Changes at URA, therefore, shouldn’t stop at just personnel but the way tax administration is carried out especially for SMEs because they are the majority and employ more people collectively. Customer care is critical if URA is to achieve its tax targets and SMEs can play a critical role if URA invested time and resources to understand them and address their challenges.

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

Tags: Denis Jjuuko, Out to Lunch, SMEs, Uganda Revenue Authority, URA

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Hoima City Stadium provides a blueprint for Uganda’s infrastructural development

OutToLunch: Hoima City Stadium provides a blueprint for Uganda’s infrastructural development By Denis Jjuuko Ugandans may be consumed with what is taking place at the Mandela National Stadium at Namboole where Uganda is hosting some continental matches alongside their Pamoja partners Kenya and Tanzania. The three East African countries are jointly hosting the African Nations Championship (Chan), the precursor to Africa Nations Cup (Afcon), the continental soccer showpiece, which will take place in 2027. Hosting Afcon has always been largely the privilege of west and north African countries. This is the first time that East Africa will be hosting the soccer extravaganza. To do so, there was a need for stadiums and other infrastructure that meet the continental or even international standards. Namboole has been upgraded hence the ongoing Chan tournament. But what is also catching many people’s attention off the refurbished Namboole pitch is something that is taking place some 210km away in the oil rich city of Hoima. When Uganda was awarded the co-hosting rights of Afcon, many people wondered where would the tournament be held. Only Namboole had a chance of meeting the requirements albeit with some major modifications. New stadiums had to be built. Ugandans laughed hard and memes started flying on social media. Not because they are unpatriotic as some people quickly label those with divergent views. They had seen a project too many that couldn’t get done on time. They saw Uganda spending many decades constructing the 21km Northern Bypass that by the time it was completed, some cheeky people had started calling it a Bypath. They had heard endless stories about many infrastructure projects. The Jinja-Kampala Expressway, the Mpigi-Kampala Expressway and even easy to do small-small projects like Kyaliwajjala-Matugga road take forever to be done. They had become skeptical given the years it has taken Lubowa Specialized Hospital to get the building beyond the plinth wall. Airport terminal buildings? Another day please. They expected Hoima City Stadium to follow a similar path. Perhaps, because this involves some continental body in the Confederation of African Football (CAF), organisers of Afcon, the country finally awarded a contract to somebody who seems to know what they are doing in SUMMA, a Turkish outfit that has built a reputation for building stadiums in Africa and handing them over in time. What they have done since construction commenced in Hoima in September 2024 is sort of a miracle by Ugandan standards. With a budget of US$129m and constructing a 20,000-seat stadium, they have shown that a project can be worked on as scheduled. And I say this well knowing that they haven’t completed the job. Given the progress that they have made, there is no doubt that they won’t complete the job ahead of schedule. The Hoima City Stadium contractor is perhaps new in Uganda and hasn’t caught the usual bug. They have not blamed the rains like most contractors do. They have not said they can’t get materials because of the war in the Middle East or Ukraine. They haven’t blamed forex fluctuations. They haven’t blamed the invisible Powers from Above. They haven’t claimed local politicians are against the project. They have said nothing about witchcraft. They have not said Ugandans are lazy, don’t want to work and report for work while clutching sachets of illicit beverages. They have not said they can’t work at night. They have not said there is no budget or some release from the Ministry of Finance delayed. They have not appeared at any parliamentary committee to beg for this or that. Nobody has seen a letter from them asking the president for this or the other. They have simply gone on with the assignment. They have shown that Rome can be built in one day if we focused on it. That government infrastructural projects can be started and worked on as scheduled. And since we love benchmarking, the SUMMA project manager, once has finished their assignment, maybe should go on a workshop spree, teaching our contractors and their supervisors that projects today shouldn’t take as much time as building St Peter’s Basilica or the Notre Dame. And it isn’t difficult to complete projects on time. If you see an official whose desk is full of files, don’t then make him the project manager. If he can’t read the files on his desk on time, how would he manage a project that needs to be delivered on time? If money isn’t available, then don’t embark on launching the project. And hire a competent contractor. Hoima City Stadium is providing a blueprint we must all embrace. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

August 20, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Subdividing land failed homeowners, time to flip that real estate model

By Denis Jjuuko A few years ago, a friend was ecstatic. Finally, after years of toiling, working at his day job and some side hustles, he had managed to buy land somewhere in greater Kampala in one of those sprawling so-called estates where Kampala businessmen buy land and subdivide it into small plots each measuring about an eighth of an acre. It didn’t take him long before he started building one of those common three-bedroom houses with high pitched roofs. Once it was to an extent complete, he moved in after throwing a house warming party for a few friends and relatives. He considered himself middle class and liked his neighborhood. The estate in which he bought land had many undeveloped plots and every time somebody came to build, he was super excited. Soon the estate would be full of houses and therefore a little bit more secure. His property value would go up in case he wanted to sell or borrow. Then we realized he no longer talked about his house and neighborhood. We thought after living there for years, he had overgrown the excitement of being a homeowner. Maybe he had started thinking about other stuff. It is a normal thing. Then he started talking negatively about his neighborhood. The estate that drove up his adrenaline was now a source of sorrow. He was thinking of relocating. He said the estate was no longer middle class. Some of us wanted to tell him that it wasn’t middle class from the beginning but age teaches you mellowness. Anyway, each person had built whatever pleased them. A storied house there, shops on the corner plot where men first stopped for a beer before proceeding to their homes every day, an apartment block here, a nursery school there, a Pentecostal church in one corner, a charcoal seller at the top of the street, a chapatti guy next door. A guy who had bought eight plots, making about an acre, had decided to plant eucalyptus trees. Another was planning some mattooke. An “investor” had decided that the estate needed an artificial grass surface in one corner where the so-called middle class could play soccer till 10.00pm or midnight, after all, he had installed the most luminous flood lights he could find on the market. My friend’s most immediate neighbor had probably listened to many inspirational speakers and decided to build a chicken coop. He heard that the poultry keeper’s grand plan included ducks, goose and even turkeys. The chicken woke him up every 3.00am or some other time in the night. The stench from the chicken coop made sure he abandons his garden, where he used to sit on weekends with one hand holding a champagne glass and another a book. And there were still many empty plots. He didn’t know whether someone could be planning a kraal or a pigsty or a brothel. He had tried involving the local leadership but there wasn’t much help. Some of his neighbours didn’t see a problem with anyone keep some chicken. In fact, they were being praised on the neighborhood WhatsApp group for their entrepreneurial ability. Many neighborhoods in Kampala are not different. In fact, a few months ago, somebody had built a kraal in Kololo. Yes, in Kololo, Kampala’s most exclusive suburb. But the neighbors there are “deep waters” so they stopped his entrepreneurship adventure. My friend is now looking for a buyer so he could sell and go to some of those housing estates by the likes of NSSF, Mirembe Villas and Royal Palm. He had always said they were expensive and criticized them for building for “non-Ugandans” but he now agrees that there, it will be hard for somebody to practice their poultry business at home. There is some orderliness. Nobody wakes up to do what pleases them. Since Ugandans love investing in land or real estate, this could be a model that people can try especially those with some capital but for not high-end clients. I know that Buganda Kingdom and NSSF are building such estates in Ssentema but they are very few units. National Housing has land in Bukerere and NSSF in Nsimbe. These among other estates could help take away people’s misery if built affordably and provide significant returns on investment. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

August 14, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: It is our turn to eat, the politicians have eaten enough

By Denis Jjuuko After nearly five years of planning, positioning, and scheming, it is time for implementation of strategies that could lead many people to their coveted offices. For some, the first hurdle is to convince their parties that they are qualified to stand for election in the primaries to represent them. To others, it is to decide whether to stand as independents and in which particular constituency. The political fever is rising across the country. At funerals, weddings, sports, religious and cultural events, candidates are aligning themselves sometimes with causes they don’t believe in while many times mudslinging others. Resources are not being spared. Unfortunately, human beings are not being spared too. Ssembabule seems to be an epicenter of violence. An incumbent even threw in the towel claiming the violence is too much. Before the ink on her words dried, a youth was shot dead! It is going to be long eight months or so. Just like it was in 2021 and in many general elections before. Usually, the news that comes out is of violence and tension leading to many people to fear. Internet is usually cut off at some stage. Some radio stations also get blocked. Tear gas becomes part of the oxygen people breathe in. But should politics be like that? Over the last few years, it has become a job. An assurance for many of those who win to earn significantly over a five-year period especially for those at the top end of politics—those who end up as Members of Parliament. They are not only paid well; the president usually appoints a significant number of them into his cabinet—an opportunity to earn even better. Maybe that is the reason it is a do or die for many candidates like we have witnessed so far in Ssembabule. Of course, many of those who stand for office won’t be elected and even many incumbents won’t win their positions back. Ugandan politics below the presidency tends to give an opportunity to a lot of new comers. They call it a ‘turn for someone else to eat.’ Issues are less discussed on what can really transform a country yet that is where we need to go. The country cannot develop if we are voting people because it is a “turn for someone else to eat.” That way you send people to elective offices who stand for nothing and therefore go wherever the wind blows. That way the country remains poor because politics is a core component of economic development. People who have no values won’t fight for anything that affects the poor. They will only be concerned about themselves and their immediate families. A few millions in their pocket, and they pass laws that lead the country to nowhere. Corruption becomes their middle name and scheming the religion they believe in. Yet the issues that affect all of us affect them too. If the road to a Kampala suburb is potholed everywhere, a politician who steals money to build a residence or rental apartments or a hotel will suffer too. He may have a government Landcruiser but for how long? His tenants or patrons could shun the apartments or the hotel because of inaccessibility. The building may end up as a white elephant. And if he is voted out, he may not have the resources to renovate it. When there are no doctors and drugs in health facilities, the politician may not have enough time to be flown to Uganda’s referral hospitals for the rich in Nairobi or New Dehli. At the end of the day, stolen money at the expense of public services won’t be able to save him. As we spend more and more time on radio and television talkshows and watching TikTok clips on a loop of politicians, we need to put them to task on what they tend to do. Particularly, how are they going to enable young people find meaningful jobs or any job at all? How are they going to help the elderly live decent lives? What is their plan on education, health, transport, and agriculture among other key sectors? Also, there is a need for civic education so that our people understand that the best thing for them is not to be given a t-shirt or a piece of soap or even a hoe, rather to have something that they do that can enable them buy such stuff on their own. It is time for the population to eat. The politicians have eaten enough. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

July 16, 2025