Every government levy must be founded in the law

On the morning of September 17, I made way to Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) offices at Amamu House, Kampala. The errand was to initiate, carry on and finish the registration of transfer of share stock in a client’s company.
At the acquiescent automated machine, I was served a ticket number placing me about 50 heads away in the queue. Being the benignant Ugandan, I knew I was up for an exasperating wait regardless of my busy schedule.
I took my seat and started planning for the next day. For the conversations which I would have had with other clients in person, I concluded them with short chats, effectively amending my early plans for that very day. After some hours, I was called to counter 10, where a gentleman smartly dressed in a pink checkered shirt, was up to serve me.
I submitted my documents, took a sigh and waited for my acknowledgement slip.
The young public servant took a look at my board resolution accompanying the share transfer forms. Chop-chop and cunningly, he turned to me and said “Sir, your resolution is out of time! You will have to pay a late filing fee of Shs110,000 (as a fine) to have it registered.”
I was amused but to save the embarrassment, I whispered to him that it was a Board Resolution for transferring share stock and legally, it would not be bound by time. He smiled at me. Leaped over to his lawyer colleagues on Counter 9, 8 and 7. He said “reeba ogu” a statement translated to me to mean “see this one.” “He thinks we have just started charging late filing fees on board resolutions.”
They giggled and told me that if I insisted on registration, I had to go and see their boss on Level 6. For a man who arrived at URSB at 10am, I had my documents received at 4pm after conducting a long lecture about the law on resolutions in that blistery building. I was lucky to return to the same place the next day for registration of another resolution, Mr Gerald Muhairwe, sitting at counter 9, insisted that “new day, new order!
Pay a fine for late filing fees or go and get clearance from the director.” The payment of any levies by a government institution must be ex-posited in the law.
This was the very reason why Rock Petroleum Ltd and 10 Ors in about 2009 sued Uganda Revenue Authority for recovery of an illegal excise-duty charge levied on them.
Their claim succeeded, with the judges stating that the tax levied had no foundation in the law. Since Parliament had earlier on revised it, charging it was illegal. Again, in another very recent decision against Entebbe Municipal Council, Justice Musa Sekaana J, was quick to criticise the council for levying an excess tax on property owners, which he termed as an absurd, illegal and irrational manner of raising government revenue.
In short, the courts have stressed the point that a levy is illegal once it is charged without any legal foundation.
By forcing the public to pay a fine for filing a company’s board resolution outside a 30-day period, URSB is following in the similar darkness.
Section 150(4) of the Companies Act 2012 does enumerate the resolutions which ought to be filed within 30 days and a Board resolution is not among.
The provision has even been tested in the courts of law in HCCS No. 115 of 2012 where Justice Madrama (as he then was) said “a board resolution is excluded from the list of mandatory resolutions that are required to be registered under Section 143 (now 150) of the Companies Act.” The fee can, therefore, only be termed as extortionist.
If URSB had a proper communication mechanism trickling, this issue would have been sorted on the previous day.