By Our Reporters
Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Commissioner General Dorris Akol must have had one of her best weekends ever following news from Abuja regarding Africa-wide consensus declaring her Africa continent’s best female CEO for the year 2018. Africa’s top corporates gathered in Abuja for the Saturday evening proceedings that culminated into Akol being announced recipient of the African Woman in Leadership Award of the year 2018. The prestigious award has since created a frenzy amongst URA employees with many vowing to reciprocate their CEO’s latest accolade by working even harder so that critics like President Museveni are denied opportunity to complain again. Ian Rumanyika, an influential PR guru at URA, says this award amounts to a very big win not just for Akol as a person and her staff at URA but for the whole country and more so hundreds of young corporates that look up to her for inspiration. The awards night took place on Saturday 1st September and, being a very busy lady, Akol was in absentia and her award was picked for her by an assistant who flamboyantly enjoyed the red carpet moment in Abuja. Specifically the Akol recognition was announced as “The African Virtuous Award for African Woman in Leadership.”
The event took place at Abuja’s Women Development Centre in Nigeria, a country that is increasingly distinguishing itself as Africa’s most influential economic power house only rivalled by South Africa. Rumanyika says Ms Dorris Akol was considered the year’s outstanding female corporate leader “because of the exemplary selfless leadership she has demonstrated.” Her unique transformative leadership qualities catapulted her into being a role model being emulated by many budding female corporates on the African continent and beyond. There evidently wouldn’t have been a better way for Akol to end the year which she equally started on another high. Only in February 2018, the same corporate female lawyer scooped the Public Service Excellence in Africa award that was given to her by the African Leadership Magazine. The ALM organizers went as far as subsequently inducting Dorris Akol into their CEOs Hall of Fame in the same month of February 2018. Rumanyika says this is indicative that the best corporate management practices for which Akol-led URA is renowned are being noticed for positively impacting on humanity not only in Uganda and the EAC region but the whole of Africa and globally. Akol, whom Rumanyika praised for internationalizing the “URA way” of doing things, has since dedicated the latest Abuja accolade to URA staff and fellow women in Uganda.
