The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is a government revenue collection agency established by the

Parliament of Uganda The parliament of Uganda is the country's legislative body. Unicameral, the most significant of the Ugandan parliament's functions is to pass laws that will provide good governance in the country. The government ministers are bound to answer t ...

. Operating under the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, the URA is responsible for enforcing, assessing, collecting, and accounting for the various taxes imposed in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

Location

URA's headquarters is located in a 22-storey skyscraper, known as Uganda Revenue Authority House (URA Tower), located at Plot M 193/4 Kinnawataka Road, Nakawa Industrial Area, in the

Nakawa Division Nakawa Division is one of the five administrative divisions of the city of Kampala, the capital and largest city of Uganda. The town of Nakawa is the site of the division headquarters. Location Nakawa Division lies in the eastern part of the city, ...

of the city of

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

, Uganda's capital and largest city. This is about , by road, east of the city center. The coordinates of the agency's headquarters are 0°19'48.0"N 32°37'10.0"E (Latitude:0.330000; Longitude:32.619444).

History

Allen Kagina Allen Catherine Kagina is a Ugandan administrator and corporate executive. She is the executive director of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA). She was appointed to that position on 27 April 2015. Before that, from 2004 until 2014, she s ...

was charged with eliminating corruption in the URA when she was appointed Commissioner General in 2004.

Minister of Information An information minister (also called minister of information) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with information matters; it is often linked with censorship and propaganda. Sometimes the position is given to ...

Rose Namayanja said, "Under the leadership of Ms Allen Kagina, we have successsfully cleaned URA and tax collections on a year-to-year basis have gone up. The situation is not as bad as it used to be." According to the ''

Daily Monitor The ''Daily Monitor'' is a Ugandan independent daily newspaper. Its name is shared by the ''Saturday Monitor'' and ''Sunday Monitor'', which are also published by Monitor Publications Limited. ''Daily Monitor'' averaged a daily circulation of 24,2 ...

'', this view was shared by the

president of Uganda The president of the Republic of Uganda is the head of state and the head of government of Uganda. The president leads the executive branch of the government of Uganda and is the commander-in-chief of the Uganda People's Defence Force. The in ...

Overview

In 1991, when URA was established, tax collection was 6.83% of

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

, amounting to UGX:133 billion. In 2015, taxes collected were 13% of GDP, amounting to UGX:11.2 trillion. URA targets to increase tax collection to at least 16% of GDP by 2020.

Administration

On 29th March 2020, the President of the Republic of Uganda H.E. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni appointed John Musinguzi Rujoki as Commissioner General. He replaced lawyer Doris Akol who was appointed on 27 October 2014 by then Ugandan Finance Minister

Maria Kiwanuka Maria Kiwanuka (born 12 May, 1955) is a Ugandan economist, businesswoman and politician who served as Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of Uganda from 27 May 2011 to 1 March 2015. Since 2015 she has been Senior Advisor to the President of Ugand ...

. Allen Kagina who served at the helm of the URA for two consecutive five-year terms prior to Doris before retiring. To accommodate the majority of its staff in one location, URA built a 22-storey tower adjacent to its headquarters at Nakawa, completed in 2018, and officially commissioned in January 2019.

Commissioner Generals

The table below illustrates the Commissioner Generals of the authority since its inception in 1991.

Board of directors

The government agency is supervised by a seven-person board of directors, who are appointed by the Ugandan minister of finance. As of June 2020, the table below illustrates the composition of the URA Board of Directors.

References

External links

Uganda Revenue Authority Website
As at 1 June 2020. {{coord, 00, 19, 48, N, 32, 37, 10, E, display=title Government agencies of Uganda Economy of Uganda Revenue services Government agencies established in 1991 Organisations based in Kampala 1991 establishments in Uganda Taxation in Uganda