Audit Mehta accounts â€" Treasury Sec
Apr 12, 2007
MEHTA Group’s accounts should be checked given their poor performance. The company has not paid Corporate Tax to Uganda Revenue Authority for the last 26 years. The tax is levied on profits of corporate entities at 30%.
By Mary Karugaba
MEHTA Group’s accounts should be checked given their poor performance, the Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Kassami, has advised.
The company has not paid Corporate Tax to Uganda Revenue Authority for the last 26 years. The tax is levied on profits of corporate entities at 30%.
Kassami attributed the company’s failure to pay the taxes to losses that have been made since the corporation’s establishment in 1980.
He told the Public Accounts committee yesterday that: “The companies have not made any profits. I completely agree with the committee that their accounts should be checked.â€
According to the 1980 joint venture agreement, the government owns 51% in four companies owned by the Mehta Group namely: Sugar Corporation of Uganda Ltd. (SCOUL), UGMA steel and Engineering Limited, Cable Corporation of Uganda and Luwala Tea Estates Ltd.
Kassami said the companies have been running on funds lent by Mehta “otherwise at one time their net worth was zero.â€
He, however, dismissed reports that the companies’ accounts were secret.
“The accounts are with the registrar of companies although the Auditor General has never audited them. But now that you have directed it, I hope the audit will be done.â€
The Constitution requires the Auditor General to audit all companies where the government is a major shareholder.
The committee, chaired by Nandala Mafabi, directed that the Auditor General carries out a forensic audit to establish why the companies are operating under losses.
“It’s from this that we shall determine whether they should be closed or not.â€
MEHTA Group’s accounts should be checked given their poor performance, the Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Kassami, has advised.
The company has not paid Corporate Tax to Uganda Revenue Authority for the last 26 years. The tax is levied on profits of corporate entities at 30%.
Kassami attributed the company’s failure to pay the taxes to losses that have been made since the corporation’s establishment in 1980.
He told the Public Accounts committee yesterday that: “The companies have not made any profits. I completely agree with the committee that their accounts should be checked.â€
According to the 1980 joint venture agreement, the government owns 51% in four companies owned by the Mehta Group namely: Sugar Corporation of Uganda Ltd. (SCOUL), UGMA steel and Engineering Limited, Cable Corporation of Uganda and Luwala Tea Estates Ltd.
Kassami said the companies have been running on funds lent by Mehta “otherwise at one time their net worth was zero.â€
He, however, dismissed reports that the companies’ accounts were secret.
“The accounts are with the registrar of companies although the Auditor General has never audited them. But now that you have directed it, I hope the audit will be done.â€
The Constitution requires the Auditor General to audit all companies where the government is a major shareholder.
The committee, chaired by Nandala Mafabi, directed that the Auditor General carries out a forensic audit to establish why the companies are operating under losses.
“It’s from this that we shall determine whether they should be closed or not.â€