[UAH] URA IN FRAUD SPOTLIGHT: Shocking Revelations How Uganda’s Top Tax Body Under-declared Billions of Dime

URA IN FRAUD SPOTLIGHT: Shocking Revelations How Uganda's Top Tax Body Under-declared Billions of Dime Recovered from a Crook Mining Company before Tossing around the Whistle Blower who helped them sniff the Shs5.4bn Swindle

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By Stephen K. Muwambi 9th, May 2013

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POSSIBLE DEFENDANT: Kagina

Questions abound, following the disappearance of Shs2.6bn that a whistle-blower helped Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to recover from a top crook Miner Company, we can exclusively reveal.

Our investigations indicate that Patriotic Peter Ojanji Oundo, reported his employer, Kasese Cobalt Company Limited (KCCL) to Police, for filing false income declarations from mineral exports. Following the successfully investigated report, URA managed to recover a total of Shs3, 845,835,308 from KCCL.

Shockingly, it is discovered that URA under-credited the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, with only Shs1, 222,704,064, leaving a total of Shs2, 623,131,244 unaccounted for. Our shocking info is corroborated by the Ministry's Permanent Secretary (PS), in a letter he wrote to the Solicitor General on February 26 this year.

Writing on behalf of the PS, Ronald Ssegawa Gyagenda confirms thus; "The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development represented by URA made an assessment for payment of royalties by KCCL of Shs3, 845,835,308." According to the letter referenced ADM/583/584/01, KCCL indeed deposited the money on URA's Account number 01392992073224 of Standard Chartered Bank. This was against the bank's advice form 2110000388202.

Scandalously, it is unveiled that URA on August 8, 2011, communicated to the ministry that it had transferred only Ushs1,222,704,064 " to the Ministry Royalties Sharing Fund AC No.00017009800076 in Bank of Uganda." URA would emphasize the amount above, was only 20% of the monies the tax body had recovered.

Prying deeper into the investigations, we discovered that KCCL admitted to dodging taxes to the tune of Shs5, 450,713,433, including penalties, but it's unclear why URA reportedly collected only Shs3, 845,835,308. Because of this glaring irresponsibility, the country lost Sh1, 604,878,125.

Meanwhile, whistleblower Peter Ojinja Oundo is crying out betrayal, after the tax body tracked back on its Whistleblower's Act that requires them part with a 5% reward from the recovered loot. This has prompted Oundo to turn to court, demanding he is paid over Ushs200m. His case is before Justice Benjamin Kabiito.

He is represented by Kaddu and Partners Advocates. The ministry of Energy has since denied wrongdoing, saying they channeled the money to the Local Government Ministry which premises KCCL's Mines, and indeed, their rightful landowners.

As such, the ministry argues URA must clear Oundo from the monies it withheld. Justice Kabiito has since allowed Oundo to join the URA Commissioner General, Allen Kagina among the defendants. Before then, Oundo was suing only the Attorney General. Watch this space

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H.OGWAPITI
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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that  we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic  and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

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