RCC halts collection of unreceipted fees from traditional healers

The deputy resident city commissioner in charge of Kimaanya /Kabonera Municipality in Masaka City, Mr Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi  has halted collection of unreceipted fees from traditional healers operating in Masaka City.

According to Mr Musaazi, currently there is no recognized tax levied on traditional healers and collecting the money is simply defrauding them.
“I can frankly say that there is no tax traditional healers are supposed to pay in relation to their trade. Those collecting money from you are crooks. When they come back to you, please call police,” Mr Musaazi said while meeting traditional healers in Masaka City on Sunday. 
 
He said Masaka City authorities had come up with a tax on the shrines in the region, but a security committee, which he chairs, suspended it.
This came after Ssalongo Kayinga Kiggundu, the chairperson of traditional healers in Masaka sub region, complained that some people from Masaka City council were fleecing them of their money.

“We are getting information from our members that people are moving around collecting money from them which is not accounted for. This is unfair,” Mr Kayinga said  
 In 2017, authorities in Mubende Municipality, Mubende District  had proposed a new tax on traditional healers in the area, who advertise on various radio stations.

Traditional healers dealing in providing herbal medicine were supposed to pay Shs30,000 as tax  every year while those  who own shrines were to pay  Shs100,000 .
But some councilors rejected the proposal, saying traditional healers are doing a noble duty of treating poor Ugandans who cannot afford conventional medicine in private clinics in the rural communities and the tax would prompt them to overcharge their clients.

For many years, various leaders have called for regulation of activities of traditional healers, accusing many of duping their gullible clients.
In many districts especially in Central Uganda, some residents spend most of their time visiting shrines and at the shrines, they are forced to part with their hard-earned money and domestic animals, among other valuables, in the name of pleasing their gods.

In the past decade, police in districts of Luweero, Kyotera, Rakai, Lwengo, Mukono, Buikwe, Masaka and Kayunga have recorded several cases involving traditional healers who have raped women and extorted money from unsuspecting clients under the guise of exorcising evil spirits from their bodies.