MTN Uganda Chairman Charles Mbiire has supported President Museveni’s strong stance against tax evasion in the telecom sector, saying such bad practices must be dealt with firmly.
In his budget day speech, Museveni said government would procure communication equipment to monitor international calls.
“There is still tax evasion among the telecom companies,” said Museveni.
“The telephone companies have been evading tax. They make 3 million calls from outside, but declare only half of it and all the money is hidden.”
In response to the President’s remarks, Mbiire told ChimpReports: “I am very happy the President has taken into consideration our usual complaints about telecom companies cheating government through bringing in grey traffic.”
He added: “This has been done by irresponsible telecom companies and we have in many occasions reported this to Uganda Communications Commission, Uganda Revenue Authority and the Financial Intelligence Agency.”
Museveni said estimates indicate that Uganda was losing approximately $400m (sh1.2 trillion) in undeclared taxes per year.
“We have made an arrangement to buy high capacity equipment to trace all the calls that come in. It will be under a public private partnership (PPP) since we did not have all the money to buy it. This issue was brought to the last parliament but was not explained well,” said Museveni.
“I think there was also lobbying by the telecom companies when the issue came to parliament,” he added.
Mbiire expressed hope that “the government action against this vice will bring about a level playing field in the telecom sector once again. MTN will fully support the effort of government to curb this vice.”