MBARARA, UGANDA: Mbarara City Council has resolved to adopt a new charging policy to help improve its local revenue base for the 2022/23 financial year.
The charging policy will see an increase in fees and licenses for specified businesses and activities.
Mbarara City Council budget is largely funded by the central government transfers with over 92 percent compared to 5 percent from local revenue and 3% from donations.
According to the budget estimates, the city plans to raise 9.1 Billion from local revenue.
They also expect discretional government transfers of 8.7 Billion Shillings, conditional government transfers of 21.089 Billion Shillings, and other government transfers of 1.2 Billion Shillings.
Eunice Asiimwe, the Chairperson of the Multi-Purpose Committee said that members observed that this year’s budget contribution from local revenue would have been higher than the estimated 9.1 Billion shillings but remained low due to either untapped or under-declared revenue sources.
She said that members proposed that an increment be made on revenue-generating sources to enable the smooth implementation of the work plan.
They agreed that revenue from Matooke daily market be increased from 13 million shillings to 16.8 million, Street parking from 239 million to 390 Million shillings, animal levies and slaughter fees from 58 to 200 Million Shillings, and lorry parking fees be increased from 19 million to 57.6 Million Shillings.
The councilors also agreed that the business license be increased from 866.8 million shillings to 950 Million Shillings.
Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi, Mbarara City Mayor said that despite the challenges like low staff capacity, lack of dedicated transport, dishonesty, and corruption faced during revenue collection, Mbarara city is capable of collecting over 10 billion shillings but has set a target of 9.14 billion shillings in the financial year 2022/2023.
Richard Mugisha, Mbarara Deputy City Clerk said that the council has also undertaken a new valuation of properties and this will boost the local revenue collections.
He is hopeful that the local revenue base will increase gradually.
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