The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) says it is adopting wearing uniforms for all its staff.
The uniforms will be embroidered with a name tag identifying each staff member, and these must be worn at all times when on duty, according to the entity’s new commissioner operations in the commissioner general’s office, Abel Kagumire.
Kagumire says this was one of several measures adopted to restore public confidence in the work of URA.
“On January 1, 2025, all officers must have uniforms with name tags. We believe this will help solve some of the issues we are having. We are improving, but we have some offices that are not toeing the line,” he said while speaking at a quarterly dialogue meeting between NGO leaders and the internal affairs minister on Thursday. The ministry’s state minister, Gen. David Muhoozi, presided over the event.
The Human Rights Centre Uganda organised the event in partnership with the NGO Bureau with support from the Irish embassy.
Kagumire noted that their intervention measure would help improve identification to deter any ethical issues among their authority’s staff, adding that it is going to ease differentiating URA staff from middlemen and crocked staff and stop them.
He said they have also introduced “a whole division on tax education with assistance from commissioners.”. This department will be charged with spreading awareness about taxation among the public so they can become acquainted with it. “Many people don’t, for example, know that to process goods that are entering the country, you need an agent,” he said.
He explained that they have also set up a hotline that can be used by the public in the event of an issue with offices. “We want to see how we can improve clients’ experiences,” he said.
The URA is not the only entity to adopt uniforms for its staff at work. The Judiciary, in 2021, and the Immigration are some of the other entities that have introduced the measure with success.
