100 URA Staff Hired Illegally

By Milton OlupotTHE Commission of inquiry into corruption in the Uganda Revenue Authority yesterday grilled board chairman Dr. Eric Adriko over employment of unqualified staff.About 100 staff were irregularly recruited through unsolicited applications and a number of them failed the internal examination but were employed and are now senior staff in the tax authority. The names were last week handed over to the commission.Commission chief Justice Julia Ssebutinde said the discovery was not isolated but were symptomatic of URA inefficiency.She said, “It makes the authority look like a dumping ground for people who failed to get jobs elsewhere.“You are the board chairman responsible for the recruitment of all staff and you look at a huge collection of unqualified people masquerading as revenue collectors.”Adriko, however, exonerated himself, saying the board is only mandated to employ the staff from the level of Principle Revenue Officers (PRO) and the management hires lower staff. He said the board was not aware of the illegal recruitment. “This is sad but we as the board are not aware. It is unfair,” he said. He said they stopped the system of recruiting from unsolicited applications.The commission earlier heard that among the irregularly recruited people, some had risen to the ranks of PRO and Senior Principal Revenue Officers, although they were recruited as Revenue Officers and Revenue Assistants.The commission, which consists of Fawn Cousens and James Kahooza, grilled Adriko over lack of a pension scheme. Kahooza wondered whether lack of the pension scheme was not a cause of the rampant corruption in URA. Adriko defended the URA staff, saying the majority were hard-working and honest. “The perception of the public and the Government about URA has been so poor. We have more clean staff than bad ones. “The perception is stereotyped. When we get the bad ones, we sack them,” Adriko said. The commission also accused URA management of sabotage by restructuring at the time the commission was investigating the tax body.Ssebutinde said this had made the tracking of documents hard.Adriko said the restructuring was in place before the probe.Ends