By Our Reporter
Three senior top commissioners of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) have thrown in a towel in what seems to be a vote of no confidence in president Museveni’s newly appointed leadership at the helm of the tax body in the names of John Musinguzi Rujoki.
Musinguzi replaced iron lady Doris Akol just a few weeks ago as new commissioner General of URA in a shocking reshuffle, which was done on twitter by the appointing authority.
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The three are Dickson Kateshumbwa, the Commissioner Domestic Taxes, Henry Saka, Commissioner Tax Investigations and Sillaji Kanyesigye Assistant Commissioner large tax payers office.
“Today, after more than 14 years of service in the Authority, I have decided to end my tour of duty ahead of my contractual period with immediate effect”. Wrote Kateshumbwa, one of the three who resinged.
Mr. Keteshumbwa, rose through the ranks in his 14-year stint at URA, serving in the domestic taxes, tax investigations, audit, and Commissioner for Customs until February 28, 2020 when the former Commissioner General Doris Akol made sweeping changes, reshuffling four commissioners and promoting Abel Kagumire to replace him.
Mr. Kateshumbwa was then assigned as Commissioner for Domestic Taxes, and insiders intimated to this website, that the veteran tax collector did not fancy his new assignment
Their resignation comes at a time when Commissioner General Musinguzi has just assumed office, with many senior staff members silently ‘grinding their teeth’. TheSpy Uganda has established that the problem messing up the former winning team at the tax board was the manner in which Musinguzi came after dropping their former team player, Doris Akol controversially.
Word is ripe with in the corridors of URA high offices that there is a certain American lady believed to be behind the whole confusion at URA after she was led to the president and ended up ‘misleading’ him in regards to rental tax issues. The lady is said to have met the president through Attorney General Byaruhanga and convinced him that she could bring to book rental tax defaulters by use of Google maps, and hence forth triple the collections the ‘lazy’ Akol and team were collecting. On Hearing this, it’s said the president immediately signed her contract and made changes in the commissioner general offices by installing his most trusted Johnson so he could work closely with the American.
In his wisdom, the president knew Akol wouldn’t work well with a person who had undermined her before the appointing authority, there by replacing her.
Infact, sources further intimated to this reporter that, during the meeting with the president, this American lady even became rude to the URA team led by Ms Akol and the Finance team led by Minister Matia Kasaija Amooti, in two of the State House meetings. In one of the meetings, it is said the president asked the two teams from finance and URA as to why they were opposed to her good ideas, yet she meant well for the country since she was going to collect more money from defaulters, which they had flat failed to do!
“Why don’t you allow her collect the revenues? I don’t care whether she takes 50 per cent of the revenues but what is at hand is that we must collect rental tax. Have you been working with these landlords to under declare rental tax? a furious Museveni asked Akol and team with his eyes wide open as though he was about to swallow some body.
It’s these issues that brought about abrupt changes at the Nakawa based URA tower. However, our sources within URA intimate that majority of the senior staff have never come to terms with the sacking of their darkling Akol and more so, being replaced with a person who hasn’t been in the management of the tax body, hence the resignation of the three top commissioners now
Meanwhile, other separate sources said, some of the senior staff members were under investigations over several allegations including corruption, although the source remained tight lipped to confirm whether the three resigned commissioners were part of those being investigated.
In January 2020, this website broke a sex scandal at URA that reportedly involved Mr.Saka Henry with his junior officer, a one Diana Musoke Balaba, wife to an MTN engineer identified as Steven Musoke, in which it was alleged that Saka was feasting on the junior staff on account of promising her juicier promotions-sex for promotions.
Sakwa became so worryingly close to Diana that soon or later started painting city hung outs red, before the MTN Telecom engineer himself spilled the beans to their boss Doris Akol through an email, which our spy intercepted.
Our Spy went ahead and revealed in January 2020 that due to her closeness with her boss Saka, Diana landed herself a juicier position as the Supervisor Budget and Reporting.
According to an announcement issued by Herbert Rusoke, the then Commissioner Corporate Services, Diana’s appointment took immediate effective as of January 2, 2020.
