Vision Group wins URA’s Tax Education Award

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Vision Group has won the Uganda Revenue Authority Tax Appreciation Award for Tax Education.

Established in 1986, New Vision Printing and Publishing Corporation Ltd is Uganda's leading multimedia company with a dominant presence in print, broadcast, and digital media.

Announcing the award during the annual Thanksgiving events, John Musinguzi Rujoki, the URA Commissioner General, on Friday, November 21, said that NVPPC Ltd has dedicated all its media platforms to distribute information about the importance of paying taxes.

“Every Thursday of the week, they relay questions to the Commissioner General in the New Vision newspaper, which are answered and relayed on all its media channels for the good of the tax-paying public,” Musinguzi said in a citation that preceded the award.

Vision Group also runs weekly tax sensitisation campaigns in the Bukedde Newspaper, published in the Luganda language, widely spoken in the central region.

Bukedde newspaper started running these URA segments in 2017. Seven months ago, New Vision newspaper picked up the same campaign.

Don Wanyama, Vision Group’s CEO, who picked the award, expressed his appreciation to URA for its tax mobilisation efforts, as well as the recognition.

Don Wanyama (centre), Vision Group’s CEO, who picked the award, expressed his appreciation to URA for its tax mobilisation efforts, as well as the recognition. (Credit: Mpalanyi Ssentongo)

“We appreciate URA for the partnership and for recognising our efforts towards tax education. We pledge to continue doing more with them, in pursuit of bettering our economy,” he said, adding that communication is key in tax compliance.

Thanksgiving:

Musinguzi referred to the thanksgiving ceremony as a covenant between our God, our country and its people.

John Musinguzi Rujoki, the URA Commissioner General. (Credit: Mpalanyi Ssentongo)

“It marks the culmination of the deliberate journey under the theme Together Building Uganda. For two decades now, URA has been having taxpayer appreciation seasons, symbolised by our commitment to transparency and national partnerships,” he said.

He revealed that the annual event, which began with a small gathering of about 200 participants on Friday, the taxpayer appreciation season attracted more than 120,000 people.

This he added, reflects a heightened understanding of our national development as a shared responsibility,” he said.

“This year's season has been bold in scale and ambition, and the theme of building Uganda together is a strategic reminder that the modern economy we all aspire to have can not be built by just government, but it is a shared responsibility, discipline and ambition,” he said.

“We moved across the country to our respective regional stakeholders, and held different integrity forums and took this time to listen, to learn and to recognise our outstanding players in the different communities and to engage and strengthen one another,” he said.

Musinguzi added that integrity forums are an important layer to URA’s mission, and that a strong revenue system is rooted in ethical conduct.

He noted that in the last financial year, URA was able to collect sh31.6 trillion against the target of sh31.3 trillion, registering a growth of 16.8% from the previous year.

“But over the last five years, we have sustained a double-digit growth of about 13% year-on-year. In the last financial year, we almost doubled our revenue collection from around sh16 trillion to the sh31.6 trillion last year,” he said.

 Similar growth, he said, has been registered in the tax register, meaning that URA is also broadening the tax base.

“However, despite this significant growth, we are meeting only about half of our national budget and our tax to GDP is still at about 14%. This gap limits our ability to fully fund our infrastructure, our education, our health care and the broader development agenda that will make Uganda move to truly an economically independent country.

Bishop Joshua Lwere, who offered a passionate sermon on ethics in tax compliance, said that corrupt people will be dogged with endless problems until they lose all the money they have stolen from national coffers.

Highlights at Thanksgiving included the URA employee donation of sh120 million to Bulibandi Primary school. The money will finance the construction of a classroom block.

Other winners of the Tax Appreciation awards included MTN, Uganda Breweries, and Tororo Cement, among others.