URA reopens city car depot after tax row

Taddeo Bwambale

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has reopened two city car depots belonging to Chatha Investments, a big car importer in Uganda.

URA officials on Tuesday closed the car depots located in the city’s Nakawa division over tax arrears amounting to sh242m.

URA’s commissioner for customs, Abdulsalaam Waiswa confirmed on Wednesday that the car depots had been reopened after the money was paid.

“We have verified their documents to prove that they paid the money and we have reopened their premises,” Waiswa told New Vision.

Drama ensued on Tuesday when the company’s managing director, Tariq Javed gave URA officials three cheques covering the full sum.

URA officers took the cheques to DFCU bank’s Lugogo Mall branch for verification but were astounded when the cheques bounced, prompting the revenue officers to close the car depots.

URA officials also closed the operations of Kampala Coaches and impounded its buses over failure to pay tax arrears amounting to sh1b.

Three of the buses were impounded by customs officials as they returned from Juba and Kigali, respectively, while another bus was intercepted in Kibuli, a Kampala suburb.

Another bus, registration number KBE 087E that was preparing for a Kampala-Nairobi trip was impounded at Namayiba Bus Terminal in Old Kampala at 2:30pm.  

 “We have had several meetings with the director of the company who is a Kenyan and he agreed to pay in installments, but has since disappeared,” Waiswa said.

The huge tax bill arises from the bus company’s failure to remit its workers’ Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and corporation tax. The bus company is owned by M/S Kamugasha Agencies Ltd.

According to Waiswa, the bus company had resorted to operating night trips and had removed the ‘Kampala Coaches’ logo and branding.