Yet to graduate students of Makerere University Business School [MUBS] have pinned Ministry of Finance officials to negligence and ignorance about unplanned government works that could distort the proper functioning of the entire economy.
With over 600,000 motor vehicles in Uganda, the students claim that the cost of inspection of all the vehicles could mean a whole large amount of money withdrawn from circulation “ignorantly” as economic development and growth will be hard to achieve since tax rates on imports and locally produced products will remain the same. Neither will the government exempt the citizens from some taxes nor reduce the tax rates which will leave every car owner UGX100,000 poorer.
The simple maths here is, if every car owner is to pay UGX100,000 for every motor, then the total of the money withdrawn from circulation would amount to UGX100billion with the number of vehicles increasing everyday including the revenue from the cyclists, passenger vehicles.
The class further states that all these activities need to be balanced with a respectively corresponding tax reduction either directly or indirectly so as to reflect the similar money withdrawn from circulation to aid individual development plans without hindrances from unplanned, abrupt decisions by economically unconscious officeholders.
The students also attribute economic hardships like failure to pay back loans to establishment of unplanned projects neither included in the annual budget. The money lag (currency withdrawn as payment for inspection) “slows down” business (reduction in demand by the population) and hence debtors may not hit their business goals as planned.
By Orville Muhumuza
