John Rujoki Musinguzi has asked the taxpayers not to be demoralised and diverted by corruption noises at the authority in their commitment to pay tax.
He asked the public to give time to the Inspector General of Government (IGG) to come up with a report on the matter.
“I can assure you that my hands have never touched corruption and they will not. There is a clear commitment from URA to fight corruption,” he said.
Musinguzi who is the Commissioner General at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) made the remarks while appearing on NBS SpotlightUG Show on Monday night. The topic was on the mandate, challenges and plans of URA.
Musinguzi admitted that indeed there is corruption at the authority just like it is in other organisations, adding that the vice is a national problem.
But he said they have set up a division to deal with staff integrity including corruption, explaining that their officials would not be corrupt without the cooperation of taxpayers which means that the public in one way or another are aiding the vice at the institution.
“We are waging war against this scourge. Over the past three years, we have had to let go of 63 staff across all levels because of corruption. There is no time when you (taxpayer) will be victimised because you refused to pay a bribe,” he said.
He said over the past three years, they have continued to align all their staff to three core values including professionalism, Integrity and patriotism.
He said they have set out a whole division (staff compliance), under the leadership of an assistant commissioner to deal with corruption.
“Let’s not be diverted by some of the noises that may take away our incentives to pay tax .For example the noise around corruption and IGG investigation. Let’s give time to IGG to come up with a report but some of these noises are a backfire of the cleaning job we have been doing,” he said.
He asked taxpayers and Ugandans at large to commit towards working together to expand the tax base.
“There are people we have thrown on the street and they are not happy .They mobilise themselves, they become the whistleblowers, they misinform and they cause the noise .Please don’t allow this noise to divert you,” he stressed.
Musinguzi said the IGG probe into corruption allegations at the tax body would actually be an additional output to the efforts being done by the authority to combat the vice.
“We are ready to work with IGG, provide them with any information that they need and also wait for their report. When a single young boy in the village gets a young girl pregnant, he dents the name of all the boys of that village. That is what a few corrupt individuals in an organisation do to the reputation of those who serve there. At URA, we don't tolerate corrupt staff,” he said.
During this year’s Tumusiime Mutebile’s memorial lecture, President Museveni named, URA, the Bank of Uganda, and the Finance Ministry, among other public institutions, corrupt, making national progress difficult.
The President cited corruption as the “number one” weakness, hindering the country's socioeconomic transformation.
IGG, Betty Kamya, last month hinted at damning whistleblower accounts, which triggered investigations into URA’s conduct of business. The investigation is ongoing.
Recently, the media reported a story on the URA Informer management system claiming that in 2019 about 3 billion was paid to ghost informers who helped in the recovery of 32 billion.
The Constitutional Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for URA to demand details of account holders from commercial banks saying this infringed on the privacy of the bank clients, guaranteed by the Constitution.
However, it maintained that information could be availed in case of an investigation on a particular taxpayer.
While responding to the media reports on the Shs 3 billion, Musinguzi said this fraud occurred many years ago, and the current management thoroughly investigated the matter.
He explained that appropriate action was taken, and consequently, the implicated officers were sacked.
"What I disrepute is what was being reported in some dailies as new discoveries on corruption, yet they (the cases) were discoveries by URA staff compliance. We are however glad that the dailies have refrained from that,” he said.