Likening the role top leadership plays in the transformation of organizations and corporate entities to that of doctors who treat and diagnose the human body from disease and ailments, outgoing Uganda Revenue Authority Boss Allen Kagina has said that having wrong leaders can kill an organization.
“Organizations are like human bodies that undergo the process of birth and growth and along the way they are influenced by environmental factors which are either positive or negative which can further or deter the growth. The negative influences can make the body to fall sick and can eventually die. Our role as leaders in organizations is to prevent the process of death in organizations” she said in her opening remarks.
“I want to give credit to the officers, senior management and board of directors with whom I have worked with because I couldn’t have done this work alone. I am therefore honoured to have led men and women who deserve the credit for the significant turnaround that URA has witnessed in the last ten years” Kagina noted.
Kagina was speaking during the 8th URA open minds forum held at the Victoria conference Hall, Serena Hotel on Thursday 23rd October. Other speakers included the Chief of Defence forces Gen. Katumba Wamala, Prof. Vincent Anegbogu from Nigeria and Director Institute for National Transformation and the moderator was Dr. James Magara a dentist and associate director of the National Institute for Transformation.
She revealed that when she joined the Uganda Revenue Authority in November 2, 1992 as a senior principal revenue officer the organization was facing so many challenges from operating an inefficient manual system to having a very bad public image.
“I remember we used to sit in ministry of finance and back then we were operating a manual system which was so inefficient, clients used to call us a den of thieves and they would beg us to serve them” she narrated.
She added that government got fed up of the inefficiency and poor service delivery and a commission of inquiry was constituted. She continued that close to one year Sebutinde commission conducted inquiries and a voluminous report was released which called for extensive reforms in the URA.
“Sebutinde’s report was rejected and independent experts from the international monetary fund had to be brought in to carry out a thorough inquiry. The report they released was comprehensive and recommended for extensive reforms in the URA” she explained.
Kagina explained that URA began by reorganizing the entire structure which saw many reporting levels in the organization cut and the entire structure was flattened. She continued that URA had to bench mark from other private institutions and the telecom companies were approached.
She further stressed that URA had to undergo a process of re-branding and the old URA was disbanded.
“We had to forget the old URA and focused on portraying a different image. We had to get a new logo, new colours, we begun holding monthly press conferences on TV and radio to give accountability to the public” she added.
“After disbanding the old URA an internal recruitment was done and for over 6 months interviews were conducted. Reporting levels were reduced from 45 to 30 levels and this resulted in a leaner organization” she narrated. Kagina pointed out that after cutting on the reporting levels revenue shot up.
Other reforms that Kagina pointed out included re-engineering which saw irrelevant procedures and processes eliminated and as a result inefficiency and corruption where greatly reduced.
“We saw power shift downwards from the top level management to the lower officers who were doing the actual work. URA then embarked on re-equipping staff through rigorous computer training because we believe to achieve better results in an organization, constant staff training is paramount” she noted.
“As a result our costs for training have increased from Shs 200m in 2004 to Shs 5billion in 2014” Kagina added.
She also revealed that URA being a service provider it was vital to build relationships with other several government bodies such as the Uganda People’s Defence forces (UPDF), KCCA, URSB, UIA and the media. “It’s through the media that we are able to communicate to the public” she stressed.
“URA began to witness positive changes in 2007 and now the organization boasts of carrying out audits online which has yielded so many results” Kagina remarked.
She was optimistic that in the future Uganda would begin to fund it’s programmes fully without relying on foreign aid.
Kagina supported the idea of taxing agricultural implements and inputs adding that the taxes would have formalized the agricultural sector.
Kagina will leave URA as commissioner General on 31st October 2014 after serving the organization for 22 years ten of which have been as commissioner General a position she has held since 2004.
She joined the URA as a senior principal revenue officer in 1992 a position she held until 2000 when she was promoted to the rank of Deputy Commissioner for customs and in 2004 she was appointed commissioner General.
In February 2006 she was awarded the corporate Leadership award by Destiny consult an industry group for turning around the tax body.
