URA wants old vehicle log books replaced with new ones within a year

“If you have a vehicle you must replace the log book. The vehicles on the roads have to be migrated to the new system,” works minister Abraham Byandala said. The move follows the introduction of digital registration and computerised registration of vehicles.

 

The minister made the remark on Friday while launching URA’s new online registration system for motor vehicles at Serena Hotel, Kampala. Under the new system, motor vehicle owners have to get new TIN (Tax Identification Numbers) numbers and passwords to enable them register their vehicles online.

 

“We hope that within one year all vehicle owners would have registered their vehicles online and received new log books, ”Byandala said. He added that newly imported vehicles would be registered directly online and issued with the new logbooks.

 

The minister said the new system will make it difficult to forge log books and records of vehicles could be monitored and updated. He said in the new system data on all motor vehicles imported into the country would be readily available to government  ministries, departments and agencies. He said this information would be used for planning by government and private sector organisations.

 

He said there were 600,000 vehicles in Uganda today and 95% of Ugandans depend on roads for transportation where they use vehicles.

 

Moses Kajubi, commissioner domestic taxes department URA said vehicle owners would be issued with passwords to enable them register their vehicle online by going to www.ura.go.ug. 

 

He added that motor vehicle owners could use the services of clearing agents registered by URA to register their vehicles online. He also said there would be no new charges for the online registration.

 

He explained that in the old slow manual system URA suffered headaches of keeping files, some would get lost or get tampered with threatening security of ownership of vehicles.

 

Simon Ngabirano, supervisor service support domestic tax department URA said people who are not computer literate will be helped by URA officials to enable them register their vehicles digitally.

 

Ngabirano said people who have not transferred vehicles into their names might be assumed not to be the owners of the vehicles and so they have to transfer the vehicles in their names.

 

“It is a simple, easy and quick way to register, transfer and deregister a vehicle from Uganda to another country. It is part of our eTAX system. It will help our clients with getting a duplicate number plate in case the initial one is lost and making alterations to motor vehicle details,” he said.