Registration bureau revenue up to sh7b - report

By Umaru Kashaka

The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) realised total collections of sh7.5b in non-tax revenue during the financial year 2011/12, up from sh5.8b in 2010/11, the new annual report currently before Parliament has said.

The collections for the year, the report continues, represented an increase of 28.4% over the previous year and of this amount, sh7.4b had been transferred to the Treasury before the end of the financial year, leaving sh53m as cash in transit.

“This improvement is attributed to recruitment of staff, establishment of strong internal control policies and improvement in infrastructural, technological and legal reforms. It is hoped that revenue collections will grow to over sh1.5b per month,” the report adds.

According to the URSB chairman, Isaac Musumba, in the course of the next reporting period, the bureau will move towards an electronic platform.

“It is our intention to have this process operational by the end of the tenure of the current board. The move away from a paper based manual system to a computer based system will lend more efficiency to registration services and have a multiplier effect on the users and beneficiaries of the services,” he said in the report.

He added: “The board would like to see the Bureau have a permanent home of its own so that the investments in infrastructure envisaged are committed to a fixed location.”

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary committee on legal and parliamentary affairs has asked the Government to urgently avail the bureau a plot of land to enable it receive an offer of $10m from the World Bank for construction of its home.

URSB which took over the functions of the Registrar General’s Office under the ministry of justice and constitutional affairs, is an autonomous statutory body that was established in 1998.