By Mulengera Reporters
Occasionally at Cabinet sessions, President Museveni has been registering his rage and disappointment with URA’s alleged under performance each time the discussion has rotated around the GoU’s Domestic Revenue Mobilization strategy.
He has always eloquently made his case regardless of how much the same hurts the reputation of Commissioner General John Musinguzi Rujoki and his supervisors at the Finance Ministry. He believes that there are lots of leakages in the tax administration system which explains why growth in tax collection hasn’t been matching the growth in GDP.
Recently, Gen Museveni required Rujoki to personally turn up for the Cabinet meeting where revenue mobilization-related concerns were to be discussed. He complied and he indeed turned up.
Unknown to Rujoki, an elderly woman called Kiconco (who had secretly been reporting URA’s anomalies to the President) had also been invited. The President had previously made complementary remarks during Cabinet meetings and referred to her during earlier Cabinet meetings, in a bid to illustrate URA top leadership’s failures.
On this fateful day, Museveni signalled Kiconco to address Cabinet and make her case regarding what she knows to be the ineptness of the leadership at URA where she previously worked before being acrimoniously forced out.
After making her case, which the President welcomed as corroborating his earlier complaints against the leadership at URA, Kiconco resumed her seat as Museveni signalled Rujoki to respond.
As he explained himself, Rujoki (who always speaks with extreme clarity to the extent that you will have to be a hater not to understand his point) demonstrated why many of the things his accuser was reporting to the President were out of context. This prompted Kiconco to walk out.
When she returned, she resumed her seat but one of the ladies working under Lucy Nakyobe at the Cabinet Secretariat approached her to indicate that what she had done was bad and amounted to insubordination. The woman reacted by throwing tantrums which attracted the attention of the President.
She loudly explained to the President how she was being witch hunted by some people, including those from the Cabinet Secretariat, because to them, Rujoki is infallible and an Angel, incapable of making mistakes.
Museveni intervened by saying that Kiconco is his treasured whistle blower, a hero he said he was prepared to protect to ensure that no one harms her because she is one very important person, he will be relying on to guide and coordinate leadership reforms he intends to effect at the Nakawa-based. URA.
The big man from Rwakitura made it clear, as he has been doing on many other occasions, that he initially had a lot of expectations in Rujoki, which haven’t been met. And he needs whistle blowers like Kiconco to inquire into the situation and establish why this has been the case. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
