The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Executive Director Jennifer Musisi has scrapped the Christmas party for the staff and introduced a number of austerity measures as the institution battles low non-tax revenue collections.

Musisi said the KCCA will scale down foreign travels and training and workshops as well as seminars held in hotels.

The city authority made a non-tax revenue collection shortfall of Uganda shillings 13.5 billion in this financial year’s first quarter.

This financial year, KCCA projects to collect Uganda shillings 122.8 billion from non-tax revenue. During the period from July to October, KCCA had projected to collect Uganda shillings 37.1 billion but only 23.6 billion was realised leaving a short fall of 13.5 billion.

KCCA also expected to get Uganda shillings 10 billion from the road fund in the first quarter but received Shillings 7.3 billion resulting into a shortfall of Shillings 2.7 billion.

Musisi said the shortfall in non-tax revenue has been caused by taxi operators’ refusal to pay tax, and delays to approval revised taxes such as outdoor advertising and physical planning fees.

“We have not been in position to collect fees for three months of August, September and October 2017 following a presidential directive on the harmonisation of taxes for the informal sector which was interpreted as suspension of the fees in question. The amount of revenue that remains uncollected from taxi operators for the months in question is approximately six billion shillings,” Musisi wrote in a letter to Kampala Minister Beti Kamya, dated November 20th.

As result of the short fall, Musisi says the institution has a number of suppliers’ invoices and contractors certificated for works that remain unpaid. She further noted that KCCA has not been able to fully remit statutory obligations such as Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) contributions.

“In the circumstances, management has decided to halt some activities in order to rationalise and focus the available resources on the key activities,” Musisi said.