URA management documents missing

Jan 31, 2008

THE Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) audited accounts for the 1998 to 2003 financial years are missing, MPs heard yesterday. Even those of the Auditor General for the 1998/1999 financial year are also missing.

By Barbara Among
and Paul Kiwuuwa

THE Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) audited accounts for the 1998 to 2003 financial years are missing, MPs heard yesterday. Even those of the Auditor General for the 1998/1999 financial year are also missing.

“We made some attempts to trace them (files) but our focus has been that the Auditor General would provide them.

Over the years, URA has moved from one place to another, so it is not easy to trace them,” said Allen Kagina, the URA commissioner general
Appearing before the parliamentary committee on commission and statutory authorities yesterday, Kagina handed in the correspondences between the office of the Auditor General and the accounting officers for the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 financial years.

This is the period that she has been in office. She promised that her office would try to deliver the missing documents.

“If given time, we shall look for them.”
However, the missing documents have created a deadlock, with the committee demanding to have them before they proceed on any other matter.

“The committee has hit a snag. The law demands that we follow the management letters which contain the most important issues raised by the Auditor General,” the committee chairman, John Odit (UPC), said.

It was the second day running that the committee had failed to probe actions of the tax body as neither the office of the Auditor General nor the URA could avail it with the accounting.

According to Odit, attempts by the committee to get copies from the office of the Auditor General are yet to yield fruit.
MPs said it was unfortunate that Kagina could only produce documents from the period she took over yet the institution was expected to have a data bank.

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