The former dfcu bank Managing Director, Juma Kisaame, has been appointed chairman of Uganda Revenue Authority, Chimp Corps report.
Kisaame, a very aggressive, principled and innovative manager, steered dfcu to become one of Uganda’s largest bank before retiring in February 2019.
URA said in a statement on Monday that it was “pleased to announce” Kisaame’s appointment and looked “forward to leading Uganda’s domestic revenue mobilisation agenda under his capable stewardship.”
Kisaame replaces Dr Simon Kagugube who passed away on February 15, 2020.
A family man with high morals and good leadership skills, Kisaame was instrumental in dfcu Bank’s impressive financial performance, leaving an indelible mark on Uganda’s banking industry.
According to dfcu director Jimmy Mugerwa, Kisaame spearheaded customized solutions that have been key to the growth of the SME sector in Uganda.
Under Kisaame, dfcu continued executing its digital transformational journey responding to customer needs and changes in the market.
Relying on this experience, Kisaame is expected to enable URA boost its tax collections.
President Museveni recently emphasised the importance of exploring more innovative ways to combat tax avoidance schemes such as under declaration to increase domestic revenues.
The tax body has severally fallen short of hitting its ambitious tax collection targets.
Experts have advised on input-output ratios of manufacturing systems to determine fair tax, digital forensics in securing and analysing taxpayer information especially in cases of fraud and geospatial technologies for correctly locating taxpayers.
Museveni said African economies including Uganda will continue to bleed unless revenue administration plug loopholes that enables illicit flows of money to easily leave the continent.
Kisaame’s appointment comes at a time multi-national companies operating in Uganda are finding ways to declare lower profits to avoid paying their fair share of taxes through aggressive tax planning structures.
Africa is estimated to be losing more than $50b in illicit financial flows every year, with Uganda specifically losing in excess of sh2 trillion annually.
Government has been pushing for scientific measures to support tax compliance such as establishment of non-intrusive inspection cargo scanners at all Ugandan border posts, electronic monitoring and digital stamping of goods in production, monitoring of all money transfers.
Other measures including strengthening of input and output analysis and chemical analysis, use of electronic fiscal devices to monitor shop sales electronically and use of geo-mapping of rental properties to avert under declaration in the real estate sector.
