By Our Reporters
If you thought the end of Commissioner General Dorris Akol’s days at URA were near, just read this.
President Museveni, who is said to be happy with her these days having appreciated the difficulties in targeted revenue collection, has lately decreed that Akol-led URA immediately takes over the collection of government revenue including tuition from University students. In what treasury sources say is meant to minimize fraud, increase transparency and streamline revenue collection, URA will now be collecting even what entities like KCCA and Public Universities have been collecting. Sources say subsequently even the collection of school fees in government-owned secondary schools will soon be collected by URA, leaving head teachers powerless and more weakened. URA will also handle all the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) collections effective July 2019. Just recently, the President (who these days doesn’t like technocrats dragging their feet on directives) prompted Finance Minister Matia Kasaijja and PSST Keith Muhakanizi to convene an urgent meeting at the Finance Ministry board room. In attendance were all the Vice Chancellors, their respective accounting officers (called University Secretaries) and a powerful delegation from URA. While there Kasaija and Muhakanizi shocked the University officials (who between them control more than Shs1trillion) when they told them there would be no more collecting of any money (NTRs e.g. tuition fees) at their Universities. They told them government had decided to have URA collect and control all the Non-Tax Revenues (NTRs) for all government entities and the motive was to eliminate fraud and also enable government to establish the accurate figures regarding how much is annually collected.
They were told this was extending even to KCCA and other entities that have been involved in any form of collection of revenue on behalf of government. The Auditor General John Muwanga in his past reports has been very critical of several MDAs for collecting and not remitting NTRs to the consolidated fund. Public Universities and KCCA had for long been spared that criticism by the AG as they were free to collect tuition fees and use it as per their approved work plans for a given financial year. This had made the VCs and USs powerful and carry massive clout that naturally comes with having direct control over the collection of so much money-it’s actually in billions per University. During the Finance Ministry meeting, the VCs and their USs tried to put up resistance but Muhakanizi (who seemed well prepared) answered all the questions before Kasaijja finally dismissed the meeting. They were told Finance will as usual avail cash to finance all their planned activities (using both their collections and govt contribution) but Akol-led URA would 100% handle the collection using commercial banks. She will be controlling the reception and handling of even money coming in form of projects for all the Public Universities. So what now will happen is that commercial banks will continue collecting tuition like before but the students will be paying onto the URA collection account and not that of the University any more. URA will then transfer the money to the treasury account within 24 hours. Then a given accounting officer will electronically go through the finance ministry to access and spend that collected tuition money on the activities planned and approved for that FY. “Your money will still be available to you as and when you want it but the power to collect is now with URA. It’s us the treasury who had given you that mandate to collect the money on our behalf and we are the same people now transferring that responsibility to URA. Where is the problem? Your money will still be available to you but the power to collect won’t be with you anymore because URA is more suited,” Muhakanizi told the University bosses who immediately abandoned their objections on realizing this was something the top political leadership of Uganda had endorsed. They were also directed to immediately write to commercial banks announcing closure of all expenditure and operations accounts the Universities have been operating there. And sources say Stanbic bank (inheriting from former UCB) was affected most on this because it has been having a lion’s share on such University accounts. All the commercial banks will only remain with one University account and that’s collection account strictly. But even then the account names will all change from the respective Universities to now be for URA meaning the banks will be collecting agents for URA and not the respective Universities anymore. Finance Ministry sources say that so eloquent was Muhakanizi in justifying the new policy (taking effect from July 2019) that at the end of his submission, the clearly crest-fallen University bosses just walked out of the Ministry to each return to their respective campuses. This is similar to what Muhakanizi occasioned years earlier against district local governments and their CAOs. This partly contributed to the collapse of Crane Bank whose proprietor Sudhir Rupalleria had good rapport with these local governments and most of their expenditure/operations accounts were held there until the same was consolidated onto the single treasury account which will remain part of PSST Keith Muhakanizi’s lasting legacy. Muhakanizi told the VCs he would release all the money required to them as per the approved work plans even if they have collected zero tuition in that quarter and he can recover the money in the subsequent quarter after tuition has been paid. URA says they are more than ready to carry on this new task that will also help boost their efforts to collect their set revenue targets for a given FY. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
