Professional acccountants support tax holiday for local investors

“Our target is to cover 200 kilometres of water accessibility per annum," she said.

Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) on Wednesday okayed a decision to grant local investors a tax holiday to stimulate economic development.

The Certified Public Accountants (CPA) voiced the remarks during the 7th CPA Economic Forum, held at Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe.

“No country in the world has developed due to presence of foreign investors. Giving tax incentives to local investors, such as tax holidays for beginners are very important to stimulate economic development”, said Dr Joseph Muvawala, National Planning Authority Executive Director, who was the key note speaker at the forum.

He said just as foreign investors are given tax holidays and other incentives, while beginning their investments in Uganda, local investors too need the same treatment from Government.

“This is a National issue. We need to discuss it with various stakeholders, especially in regard to tax exemption for local investors”, he added.

He advocated for prioritising consumption of locally manufactured goods, to reduce on injecting hard earned foreign currency in the importation of goods which are locally manufactured.

“We must love Ugandan products, but if you choose to import the same products, government will tax you heavily”, he pointed out.

Fredrick Kibedi, ICPAU president, said eliminating development bottlenecks is crucial, when it comes to accelerating economic development.

He said the role of certified public accountants is to guide both private and public institutions on how to grow business.

He said, it’s against this background that Government has partnered with ICPAU, to rid Public and Private Institutions of quack Accountants.

National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) Senior Public Relations Officer, Sarah Namuwenge said economic development can’t be realised without accessibility of clean water to both urban and rural Ugandans.

She said NWSC has extended water delivery points in rural areas, where residents buy 20 litter water container at Shs 25.

“Our target is to cover 200 kilometres of water accessibility per annum," she said.