Airtel recognized as Uganda’s top tax contributor

Airtel Uganda has been recognized as Uganda’s largest tax Payer and rewarded for their compliance in remitting taxes to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).

The announcement was made during the Uganda Revenue Authority 14^TH Taxpayers Appreciation Awards – 2019 held in Kampala on Friday.

Airtel Uganda paid Shs136 billion in the financial year 2018/19 winning the Excel Award for the year.

“Airtel has contributed over Shs136 billion in the financial year 2018-19 making it the biggest contributor of income tax in the last financial year,” a statement from Uganda Revenue Authority read in part.

Handing over the award, the Minister of Finance Hon. Matia Kasaijja congratulated Airtel upon the achievement and lauded the company for their contribution towards the development of Uganda through tax.

Mr. V.G. Somasekhar, the Managing Director of Airtel Uganda, thanked Uganda Revenue Authority for recognizing their contribution to the company’s GDP and the work they are doing to remain complaint. He also thanked Uganda Communication Commission, Ministry of Information Communication and Technology and the Government of Uganda for the support rendered to Airtel.

“It is an honor for Airtel to be recognized as the largest tax payer in Uganda. We are thankful to our customers and partners who have made Airtel their network of choice,” he noted.

“We believe leadership is a responsibility – one that we have happily taken on and this recognition is yet another milestone and an affirmation that Uganda has noticed. We remain committed to the leadership of the telecommunications sector and compliance is an integral aspect of that commitment,” he added.

The award comes on the heels of the company’s massive investment in innovation, network and infrastructural expansion.

After achieving 100% of all sites on 4G LTE, Airtel is transforming wireless technologies that are bringing about efficiency in the way voice and data services are experienced across the country.

1. Introducing 4x4 MIMO for the first time in Uganda. This is essentially 4 streams of data for transmission and receiving pathways which means MIMO has greatly enhanced 4G speeds of data.
2. Carrier Aggregation which is a technology that combines two or more carriers into one data channel to enhance the data capacity. Carrier Aggregation has been used for spectrum efficiency and speed so users can experience incredibly faster down load and upload speeds that bring with them high resolution videos that can stream with minimum buffering.
3. Fiber Expansion which is a transmission technology that uses light to transmit data. This technology provides data speeds in excess of 1Gbps which improves speed and latency of data services. Currently more than 50% of Kampala sites are on fiber.

Under the stewardship of Ms. Doris Akol, URA has been able to grow revenue from UGX 8,031.03 billion in the financial year 2013/14 to UGX 14,456.11billion in the financial year 2017/18. This translates to about 80% growth, raised tax to GDP ratio from 11.7% in the financial year 2013/14 to 14.35% in the financial year 2017/18.