URSB to prioritise community awareness, digitization of services in new financial year

The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) has listed community mobilization and mindset change as well as digitization of services as key priorities areas for financial year 2024/25.

This was revealed was by the Registrar General, Mercy K. Kainobwisho as she presented the performance of URSB to stakeholders on Thursday.

She said  URSB would place focus on key growth areas through doubling public awareness campaigns, developing joint capacity-building programs to enhance the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of stakeholders in navigating registration

processes, managing intellectual property rights, and complying with regulatory requirements, advocating for policy reforms, regulatory improvements, and legal reforms that support entrepreneurship, innovation, and business growth, leveraging technology and

innovation to streamline registration processes and use of research, data, and insights on business trends to provide services that suit the needs of the citizens.

Among the achievements made so far, the Registrar General highlighted the successful implementation of the online business registration system (OBRS), which she says has significantly enhanced accessibility, efficiency, and convenience for businesses seeking

registration services.

By leveraging its cutting–edge features, OBRS has not only simplified the registration process but also enabled businesses to register seamlessly from any location, thereby promoting a more agile and competitive business environment.

The Registrar General listed other outstanding achievements including growth in non-tax revenue (NTR) which rose to shs71.1 Billion in the financial year 2022/2023, implementation of the mass business registration initiative that supported the registration of

20,160 new companies and 19,063 business names in the period July to March of financial year  2023/24, protection of family through marriage registration, enabling the passing of regulations under the companies and insolvency acts and  enhancing access to credit for MSMEs by integrating the Security Interest in Movable Property Registry (SIMPO) system with the motor vehicle registry at Uganda Revenue Authority.

She also mentioned enabling automated and seamless lodging of caveats on motor vehicles used as collateral, as well as defending Uganda’s

progress in addressing the outstanding issues regarding compliance with the Financial Action Point Task Force (FATF) standards which saw Uganda subsequently removed from the grey list.

The Registrar General said URSB in its role as the national intellectual property office had increased registration of trademarks, innovations and creative works to promote business competitiveness and made progress in the amendment of the Copyright and Neighboring

Rights Act 2006 where views were collected from writers, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists among other stakeholders.

She added that as part of the campaign initiated by government to improve community mobilization and mindset change, URSB was promoting stakeholder awareness and participation in URSB services, strengthening client service feedback mechanisms and

executing corporate social responsibility activities.

“Over time, URSB has implemented various service delivery and efficiency initiatives to enhance its operations and better serve

its stakeholders. These activities can be credited for the organisation’s impressive performance across all its services,” Kainobwisho said.

Speaking at the event, URSB board chairperson,Francis Butagira said their  strategic objectives have been geared towards meeting the needs of the business community and wider range of stakeholders.

"The steady increase in our NTR collections is attributed to among other things, growing public knowledge of registration services, zero tolerance for corruption, and continuous automation and simplification of registration procedures” he said.