The creation of the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) - an e-registry portal - will allow potential businesses to get information on licences when starting a business. It comes with adequate information about licensing requirements, costs, application forms and the contact details for all relevant regulatory agencies. The launch of the portal is one of the most critical strategies by government to ease the setup of businesses, and attract more tax revenue, especially after donors withdrew a substantial amount of aid.
"Someone from any part of the country would just have to log on www.businesslicences.go.ug and search for the specific business they want to get licensed in," said Bemanya Twebaze, the URSB registrar general. He added that the portal would be fully-uploaded with all industry-specific licences for all sectors, the types of business and activities which require licensing.
The portal was developed in line with recommendations by the Business Licensing Reform Committee (BLRC), formed in 2011 to assess the existing licences, and advise on reducing regulatory costs and risks of doing business. The total saving anticipated from the implementation of this portal is estimated at Shs 32bn, according to the ministry of Finance.
While reading the national budget for the financial year 2013/2014, Maria Kiwanuka, the minister of Finance, proposed the provision for "a legal framework through which Uganda Revenue Authority will collaborate with URSB, local governments and KCCA to identify taxpayers and collect taxes on small businesses which are hard to reach by URA." This, she added, would go a long way in "easing tax administration and enforcing compliance, by bringing more taxpayers into the tax net."
Already, Kiwanuka said KCCA had streamlined the time taken to issue a trade licence through decentralisation of issuing authority, and that this had reduced the time from 60 days, to four working days. The 2012 Ubos investor survey results indicated that about 4,333 businesses had been licensed - though more than half of these were non-operational.
Twebaze believes the portal would attract more new investments. He said that soon the portal would become a one-stop centre, where someone would be able to fill out forms, pay the fees and get a licence online. Currently, the portal has the necessary forms in PDF format, where a potential applicant would download, fill and make physical submission to the relevant authorities.
Twebaze says the portal will also improve Uganda's ranking on the World Bank's Doing Business indicators. The latest report, released in March, places Uganda in the 120th position out of 185 countries surveyed. One of the bottlenecks the report highlighted were the bureaucracies involved in attaining an operating licence where it takes 15 procedures and 33 days to register a business in Uganda. For that reason, many potential investors would rather do business elsewhere.
Gerald Ssendaula, the former minister of Finance, is optimistic that the portal will improve government transparency, accountability, regulatory compliance and increase revenue through greater SME participation. Government has already received a credit line of $100m from the World Bank, through the Competitive and Enterprise Development project, to support the portal.
http://allafrica.com
No comments:
Post a Comment