Bad drivers, noise polluters to face fines in new Govt revenue drive

KAMPALA - Permanent Secretary/Secretary to Treasury (PS/ST) Ramathan Ggoobi has assured citizens that Government is finalising a new tax policy, which focuses on raising revenue collections without increasing tax rates, a phenomenon known as ‘tax buoyancy’.

“When the honourable Minister comes with detailed estimates, we shall come with a number of reforms we want to do in the clean-up exercise. You remember we promised a clean-up, we are going to clean up ourselves. Next Financial Year is the starting year,” Ggoobi stated.

“People who are driving badly, those are trading in a chaotic manner, people who are abusing all sorts of noise pollution. You pollute, but give us some money. Drive on our pavements, pay us some money, and so on. We are going to do that; I want to assure you,” he added while referring to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. 
According to Ggoobi, “sh40 trillion (revenue target in 2026/7 FY) is still a very small revenue in an economy which has Sh284 trillion (GDP).”  
 
He made these comments on Tuesday, January 20, 2026. This was during an interaction with the House committee on Finance, chaired by Rwampara County MP Amos Kankunda (NRM). 

This followed concerns raised by Otuke County lawmaker Paul Omara regarding revenue sources to spur growth. 

“Have we included oil revenues? What I normally see is that URA has consistently, over the years, added Sh3 trillion or Sh3 point something trillion every financial year in terms of revenue collections. So, I just want to know if we have revisited our tax core?” Omara posed.

According to documents submitted, in the next fiscal year, it should be noted that revenue is projected to rise by Sh3.5 trillion from the Sh36.739 trillion in the 2025/6 FY
Omara also questioned measures the ministry has put in place to deal with the economic bottlenecks, such as the annoying traffic jam.

“Look at anything like the roads getting out of the city. Instead of doing roads being politically across the country, the radius of Kampala almost gives us 75 percent of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Why don’t we clean up these roads, clear the bottlenecks, increase the circulation of money, and as a consequence collect more revenue, because people are offloading and taking these things (commodities)?” he added.

Ggoobi said that while they are working on several undertakings to ease congestion, that’s the price of development. Going forward, all and sundry must ensure that the economy expands horizontally such that there is less convergence in one area.

“Sometimes the Ugandans are growing faster than the physical infrastructure; they are buying more cars. If you went to United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, now, Dubai, they have some of the best roads in the world, but they are also choking on traffic every day,” he explained.

“So, they are saying what should we do? They have put roads on top of others, but people are buying more cars. They are trying to think of which solutions we can have, public transport, in some countries like Dubai, it can’t work well because you have to get out and enter the building quickly, otherwise it is too hot,” Ggoobi added.

Also, documents indicate that Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) customs countrywide enforcement operations during the first half of the 2025/6 FY led to recovery of Sh41.39 billion against a target of Sh61.52 billion. Relatedly,  alternative dispute resolution cases resulted in the realisation of sh274.13 billion.