Trade ministry to tackle corruption

The ministry of trade, industry and cooperatives is set to institute measures to cut red-tape and corruption in the issuance business licenses and verification of standards following complaints at a meeting with the Dutch business community.

Amelia Kyambadde, the trade minister revealed that the ministry will closely monitor its officials and swiftly deal with complaints about the soliciting of bribes. "This (corruption) is a place where Uganda needs to improve. It takes two to stop corruption, both the giver and receiver; people should not be offered bribes to do their work," she said.

The trade minister's remarks came in the wake of damning data from the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) annual report conducted by Transparency International in 2016 which ranked Uganda at 151 of 176 countries in the world, some 12 places worse off from its position in the 2015 report.

According to data from the ministry of trade, imports from the Netherlands accounted for $78.1m (about sh281b) in 2016 and consisted of mainly machinery, and mineral fuels and oils. Exports to Netherlands accounted for $71.8m (about sh259b) and mainly consisted of flowers, agricultural products and fish.

Henk Jan Bakker, the Netherlands ambassador to Uganda pointed out that corruption is a hindrance to the expansion of Dutch investment and should be tackled to bring down the cost of doing business.

"We see Uganda as a transition country which is moving from aid to aid and trade. This illustrates the confidence we have in Uganda and the Ugandan economy," he said.

"There is relatively limited competition and a large market. However, despite the positives, it is still not easy to do business in Uganda. It is hard to access finance and there are no real one stop business licensing shops," Bakker said, pointing complaints from the local Dutch business community.

There were complaints over an aggressive taxation regime and a high Value Added Tax (VAT) rate. Further complaints were directed at the high cost and delays in accessing work permits, lack of specialized contractors, negative image abroad and difficulty in identifying the right partners for new business ventures.

Kyambadde noted that a committee has been set up to expeditiously handle non-tariff barriers to trade and urged the investors to text any complaints to *201#.

The text messages will directly be linked to senior officials at the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), directorate of citizenship and immigration, Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), Police, Ministry of agriculture and the Ministry of East African Affairs (MEACA).

Bemanya Twebaze, the URSB Registrar General noted that newly licensed businesses are automatically registered for taxes as part of the tax expansion project. He noted that such initiatives have brought down the time required to register a new business to between one to three hours.

He noted that the URSB portal is being refitted with online payment functionalities to enable new businesses to get registered almost instantly. 

Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the URA Customs Commissioner blamed breakdown internet service on the national internet backbone structure for the intermittent service on the tax body's online portal; he however noted that the URA is working with NITA-U to improve internet connectivity to make it easier to file tax returns.