By Steven Enatu
SOROTI CITY
The Soroti City council loses over one hundred million per month in revenue to source providers to whom local revenue sources have been tendered to for financial year 2022/2023.
According to a report of revenue performance of the city, In the Financial Year 2022/2023, Soroti City tendered 18 local revenue sources to source providers.
Many of these companies however are not complying to the agreed contract terms in remittance of funds to the city council with exception of a few like Opiro enterprise contracted to source revenue from public convenience Lot 1 in central market, Amorato from Amukaru cattle market.
A company in the names of M/s Inofit Investment sourced to generate revenue in loading and offloading was awarded a contract of twenty four million, six hundred and twenty seven thousand fifty shillings (24,627,050 UGX) but only remitted twenty three million Uganda shillings for the month of November 2022 and has not paid for December 2022 and January 2023.
In hotels and lodges management, M/s Art point services was awarded a contract of twelve million per month but only remitted two million in the month of January 2023 and defaulted the previous two months of 2022 in the first quarter.
A list of eleven companies (Source providers) has been noted with outstanding contract obligation as of 31st January 2023.
They include Inofit investment with 50,881,150UGX, M/s Itahr services for Soroti central market gate entry 13,301,772shs, M/s Phemad limited 10,500,000shs for Special hire, M/s Romjes in charge Hotel Tax 10,000,000Ugx, M/s Ejiet printing services 4,890,000shs for small markets in Soroti city west, M/s Acra holdings 4500,000shs for public convenience places in public gardens among others.
From this, there is a high level of noncompliance by most of the contractors and illegal collection of money in areas of; loading and unloading, street parking, gate entry in the main market with use of illegal receipts.
Without divulging into details, one of the officials at the city testified having received several threats from some individuals who own some of these non-complying companies for sharing their performance with council.
The council claims that some of the owners of these companies are National Resistance Movement party mobilizers who run to top offices for backup in case they are told to comply.
However during the review of the departmental performance report by the general purpose committee of council headed by John Junior Okwii who also doubles as the youth councillor, it was recommended that the city clerk must have an engagement with the source providers then feedback is shared with council for action points.
While responding to these the deputy city clerk James Obore noted that a meeting with source providers will be organized to iron out the problems.
He said that a company like Inofit is known as a source provider of loading and offloading but the company has also subcontracted brokers who may be not complying.
“They have our money and we shall demand it, after this meeting with them, some of them if they continue in breach of contract obligation, we shall be forced to blacklist them and procurement must note this” he stressed.
On street parking, the city authority is planning to establish an automated parking fee to avoid illegal collection.
George William Tuke the commercial officer for the city said a company has been got willing to install the system and the software to handle the matter but only waiting for reaction from the procurement department.
He said the company shall install their system and the software, recruit and train personnel to manage the system. “But we shall be paying them 12% of the total collection, that is their payment” he said.
The council general purpose committee adopted the idea saying it will help in saving revenue from leaking to greedy and self-centered individuals.
