URA grabs Shs1b in raid on UTL account

KAMPALA.

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has seized Shs1.1 billion from the UTL account, the company’s chairman, Mr Stephen Kaboyo, told MPs yesterday, referring to a raid by the tax body on Monday.

The seizure happened a day before the government took full control of the debt-ridden firm.

Finance minister Matia Kasaija told Parliament’s select committee investigating impropriety at UTL that the government took over the company to save it from collapsing.

“We had to take a drastic decision …our brothers from Libya in the name of a company called Ucom divorced us when we were just about to consummate our marriage,” he said, adding: “We cannot allow this company to sink.”

MP William Nzoghu (FDC, Busongora North) had tasked Mr Kasaija to explain how they will recover the Shs18 billion owed to UTL by several government agencies.

Mr Kasaija, however, blamed government accounting officers for failing to recover the monies and instructed Secretary to Treasury, Mr Keith Muhakanizi, who was present, to implement recovery of the funds.

“My Permanent Secretary [Muhakanizi], with my full knowledge has been writing to the accounting officers responsible and I think we [have] reached at some stage where we said if you don’t pay then we shall deduct [the money] at the source from your vote,” the minister said.

Mr Muhakanizi called the intransigence by the accounting officers “Aminism”; an euphemism he contrived to reference wayward conduct by bureaucrats which was reportedly widespread under Idi Amin’s government.

“We must solve this historical indiscipline by accounting officers...I am going to write to the Permanent Secretary of Defence…this Aminism must stop,” he said.

State House alongside security agencies are the biggest clients of UTL and, as such, account for much of its unpaid monies.
Available records, for instance, show that Uganda Police Force and the Ministry of Defence are the leading defaulters, and Mr Muhakanizi said he cared less if State House was disconnected over the arrears.

“Even if it means disconnecting State House, I will do so,” he said.

Reinvestment
UTL board chairman Mr Kaboyo told Daily Monitor after appearing before Parliament’s select committee investigating the allegations of fraud and theft at UTL, that the firm’s debt exceeds Shs500 billion.

Much of the money, he said, is owed to Airtel and MTN in unpaid interconnection fees.

Asked by MP Thomas Tayebwa (NRM, Ruhinda) on debts, the state minister for Privatisation and Investment, Ms Evelyn Anite, requested the lawmakers to “invite previous ministers to respond to those questions so that we can respond to current affairs”.

She disclosed that the Auditor General, who was reported to have earlier declined to audit the entity citing ‘legal challenges’, had now started forensic examination of the company’s operations, assets and liabilities.

Busongora County MP William Nzoghu had earlier complained of UTL’s refusal to be audited by the Auditor General, saying they are a private entity and that the government should not bother to look into its books.