Speed Up The Company Registry
Jun 25, 2003
One of the greatest innovations made in tax collection happened in the motor vehicle road licensing department.
By Chibita wa Duallo
One of the greatest innovations made in tax collection happened in the motor vehicle road licensing department. To renew one’s road licence is now a one-day affair. Take your log book, have it assessed, pay and in an hour you have your car sticker back. The assessment and payment are both in the same place, DFCU Bank, Impala House.
When one remembers how long it used to take, how congested the revenue offices can get, there is no reason not to give credit to the people who came up with that innovation.
The same level of innovation is now needed to save the taxpayers from the hassle that has emerged in the Company Registry. If I remember correctly, there was a time when the length of time it took to register a company had been expedited to one day. Unfortunately, this department has suffered some setbacks as far as speedy registration of companies and other related documents is concerned.
Previously, all the money for registration of companies was paid, in cash, to the Department’s cashier, who then balanced books and then banked it, or so it was assumed. Apparently, there was a problem with that revenue. Not all of it was being banked. When it was, it was being banked late. Government was losing revenue through this handling of cash by non-bank people and by some other means.
As a way of stopping this loss of Government revenue, a decision was made to have all the proceeds from the Company Registry banked direct by the taxpayers. Just like it happens in most other Government departments.
The Registrars carry out the assessment, issue bank advice forms and off to the bank one goes.
There is something called bank returns, which then have to be awaited the next two or three days before the company registry finally registers whatever the taxpayer may want. This is when the bank confirms to Revenue Authority that the documents filed and the cash received do correspond.
Apparently, as a result of this measure of forbidding cash transactions in the registry, revenue in this area has skyrocketed. This is definitely a good piece of news. There is however the bad part.
The major setback that this innovation has suffered is that doing business with the company registry has been slowed down by as many as four days! There is no way of getting a company floated in one day anymore.
The registry is located over at Crane Chambers, Orient Bank in Kampala. The place where the money is paid is further down the road at Uganda House and the bank returns emerge at the Ministry of Justice headquarters on Parliament Avenue. One wonders when the different functions will be brought together from a three-stop-shopping centre into a one-stop centre to reduce on the amount of running around.
More significantly, it would be good and quite innovative if the example of the road licence renewal is emulated in the case of registering companies and related documents. Moreover, the case for the company registry is even more acute, given that it is the only one that serves the whole country.
Just imagine someone coming to Kampala from Arua, Moroto or Kisoro, to float a company. Having to wait three or four days before accomplishing that mission just increases the cost of doing business! He has to either spend on food and lodging for three days and nights or pay in terms of transport if he were to choose to return home before picking his documents.
The other rather strange component of this whole transaction is the relative cost of the different services. Some documents cost as low as sh500 to register.
Registering a basic company resolution, for example, costs quite little money. Yet the bank charges a flat fee of sh2,000 for most banking transactions that it handles on behalf of the revenue agency.
Of course there is the cost of the bank advice forms and some other indirect costs to Government. Is it worth it for Government to spend over sh2,000 in order to collect just sh500?
The cost of doing business should come down if the idea of having everything done in the Company Registry is thought through and implemented. While it is good and commendable that Government revenue is safeguarded, it is also important to make the taxpayers’ lives easier.
Fortunately, the example of the road licence renewal has shown that the two aspirations need not be mutually exclusive.
Ends
One of the greatest innovations made in tax collection happened in the motor vehicle road licensing department. To renew one’s road licence is now a one-day affair. Take your log book, have it assessed, pay and in an hour you have your car sticker back. The assessment and payment are both in the same place, DFCU Bank, Impala House.
When one remembers how long it used to take, how congested the revenue offices can get, there is no reason not to give credit to the people who came up with that innovation.
The same level of innovation is now needed to save the taxpayers from the hassle that has emerged in the Company Registry. If I remember correctly, there was a time when the length of time it took to register a company had been expedited to one day. Unfortunately, this department has suffered some setbacks as far as speedy registration of companies and other related documents is concerned.
Previously, all the money for registration of companies was paid, in cash, to the Department’s cashier, who then balanced books and then banked it, or so it was assumed. Apparently, there was a problem with that revenue. Not all of it was being banked. When it was, it was being banked late. Government was losing revenue through this handling of cash by non-bank people and by some other means.
As a way of stopping this loss of Government revenue, a decision was made to have all the proceeds from the Company Registry banked direct by the taxpayers. Just like it happens in most other Government departments.
The Registrars carry out the assessment, issue bank advice forms and off to the bank one goes.
There is something called bank returns, which then have to be awaited the next two or three days before the company registry finally registers whatever the taxpayer may want. This is when the bank confirms to Revenue Authority that the documents filed and the cash received do correspond.
Apparently, as a result of this measure of forbidding cash transactions in the registry, revenue in this area has skyrocketed. This is definitely a good piece of news. There is however the bad part.
The major setback that this innovation has suffered is that doing business with the company registry has been slowed down by as many as four days! There is no way of getting a company floated in one day anymore.
The registry is located over at Crane Chambers, Orient Bank in Kampala. The place where the money is paid is further down the road at Uganda House and the bank returns emerge at the Ministry of Justice headquarters on Parliament Avenue. One wonders when the different functions will be brought together from a three-stop-shopping centre into a one-stop centre to reduce on the amount of running around.
More significantly, it would be good and quite innovative if the example of the road licence renewal is emulated in the case of registering companies and related documents. Moreover, the case for the company registry is even more acute, given that it is the only one that serves the whole country.
Just imagine someone coming to Kampala from Arua, Moroto or Kisoro, to float a company. Having to wait three or four days before accomplishing that mission just increases the cost of doing business! He has to either spend on food and lodging for three days and nights or pay in terms of transport if he were to choose to return home before picking his documents.
The other rather strange component of this whole transaction is the relative cost of the different services. Some documents cost as low as sh500 to register.
Registering a basic company resolution, for example, costs quite little money. Yet the bank charges a flat fee of sh2,000 for most banking transactions that it handles on behalf of the revenue agency.
Of course there is the cost of the bank advice forms and some other indirect costs to Government. Is it worth it for Government to spend over sh2,000 in order to collect just sh500?
The cost of doing business should come down if the idea of having everything done in the Company Registry is thought through and implemented. While it is good and commendable that Government revenue is safeguarded, it is also important to make the taxpayers’ lives easier.
Fortunately, the example of the road licence renewal has shown that the two aspirations need not be mutually exclusive.
Ends