URA EXTENDS PROMOTIONAL MOTORCYCLE REGISTRATION PERIOD IN WEST NILE

The URA regional offices in arua where regisration takes place. Photo by Godwin Abedican

By Godwin Abedican

Arua

Uganda Revenue Authority URA has extended the promotion for subsidized costs of registration of motorcycles in West Nile. This comes following the end of a previous 6 months of the same which was granted to the region that ended on June 30, 2024, from February 12 2024.

In a circular dated July 26, 2024 released by the tax body, the extension in which registration was reduced from 1.5 million to seven hundred fifty thousand (750,000) shillings, now goes on until the month ending September 30, 2024.

Sanyu Claire, the URA supervisor for stakeholder engagement in West Nile therefore appeals to the public to take advantage of this chance. “This is for our region and people need to take advantage. For me I think rather than people taking things for granted, let us take advantage. As long as you see a time period beginning to reduce from 6 months to now 3 months, we should be keen on that and act faster because this could be something that we may never get again,” Sanyu said.

She further cautions the public against using unregistered motorcycles as it is a source of insecurity to their lives. “The area that many people ignore is that it has security implications. Honesty speaking, if you are a serious and responsible citizen, you will never board a motorcycle that is numberless. Because there are very many questions that can be raised on why someone chooses not to register his motorcycle yet the people with whom he is working have registered. I call upon members of the public to come to URA and tell us their stories because it could be more than what we think and then we see a way of helping them to be law abiding citizens,” she appealed.

In the first round of the promotion, around three thousand five hundred (3,500) unregistered motorcycles got registered by the end of the 6 months earning URA around two billion six hundred twenty-five million (2,625,000,000) shillings.

However, Elmahad Salim Mawa, the chairperson Arua City boda-boda riders association notes existing gaps that need to be fixed in this promotion given experiences during the first phase of the promotion in the region. “During that time not everything was done rightly. There were those who registered their motorbikes and paid but their names were not in the system. We had agreed on terms including payments in installments which started well but towards the middle of the period, this was scraped off, making it very hard for the boda-bodas to come and register. That explains why many motorbikes remained unregistered. Our cry still remains that URA management in this extension allows for payments to be done by installment,” He appealed.

According to the chairperson, they have continued to face mobilization challenges among the riders in the industry towards this cause.

West Nile is one of the regions with high numbers of unregistered motorcycles as a result of the porous border points with the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

This Reduction in cost for registration aims at reducing the number of unregistered motorcycles on the road which have been a source of confrontations between the riders and URA sometimes ending in loss of lives.
 
 
 

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