City traders reject minister’s pleas, vow to resume strike

Traders are to resume their strike next week after rejecting a plea by the Minister of Kampala City and Metropolitan Affairs and the Commander of Military Police to halt the protest to allow engagements with the government.
Leaders of four different traders’ associations met Minister Minsa Kabanda, the Commander of Military Police, Brig Gen William Bainomugisha, and Mr Michael Katungi, a member of Patriotic League Uganda, at Fairway Hotel in Kampala on Wednesday.

The traders are protesting a range of issues, including the implementation of the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS) system during tax assessment by the Uganda Revenue Authority .
The spokesperson of the Federation of Uganda Traders Associations (Futa), Mr Moses Lwegaba, said they have rejected further engagement with the government and have decided to resume the protests.

“We explained to the traders the suggestions by Minister Kabanda. They have rejected them. They told us that if EFRIS implementation continues, they will resume the strike next Monday,” Mr Lwegaba said.
On Wednesday, Futa halted the strike at the request of government officials after they were promised to meet President Museveni today.
Mr Lwegaba said the officials, whom he didn’t name, met them and the leaders took their word that they would meet President Museveni to discuss their tax grievances with URA.

“So we were asked to halt the strike to allow the meeting with the resident on Friday to go on smoothly, which we did. We found out later from a State House press release that the officials had told us a lie, we were not going to meet the President,” Mr Lwegaba said. On Wednesday, the Senior Presidential Press Secretary, Mr Sandor Walusimbi refuting allegations that Mr Museveni was scheduled to address Kampala traders at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds today.
However, on Wednesday the same officials invited them for another meeting at Fairway, which was allegedly to organise before meeting the President.

“Shockingly, it is Minister Kabanda who appeared, accompanied by other government officials. The organisers apologised to us for cancelling the meeting with the President saying that he had an urgent function in Mbarara on Friday [today],” he said.
The meeting had failed to kick off after the two prominent traders associations; Futa and Kampala Capital City Traders Association (Kacita), rejected the inclusion of two other traders’ groups that hadn’t participated in the talks about tax issues before.

Minister Kabanda allegedly convinced the leaders of the associations that it was in their interests to have all parties with grievances participate in the meeting.
“It was agreed that each association selects two members to come up with a joint document that would be presented to the president at the time of his choosing,” Mr Lwegaba said.

All the traders associations agreed and each selected two members to represent them on the committee.
Efforts to get a comment from Ms Kabanda about her meeting with traders were futile. Our calls to her went unanswered.
Several members of Kacita and Futa have since rejected what their leaders agreed on, insisting on continuing with the strike next Monday if URA doesn’t halt the enforcement of EFRIS.

Background
URA has continued to enforce EFRIS, saying it has led to an increase in tax collection in the central business district by 500 percent and has also reduced incidents of underreporting sales by many traders.