Ivan is the Agribusiness Manager in Uganda Co-operative Alliance Ltd (UCA), the umbrella organisation for all Cooperatives in Uganda. UCA has engaged government on several policies including amending tax laws and policies to exempt Cooperatives from taxes.
Argument on taxation
The argument on the side of UCAs is that Cooperatives are drivers of economic progress through empowerment of farmers and farmer organisations.
Cooperatives in Uganda have been complaining of exorbitant taxes levied on them by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and have written several petitions to government through UCA. It is on this basis that UCA has been engaging government ministries, departments, parliament etc.
According to Ivan: “Taxation being a policy matter, FACT Methodology was applied effectively because farmers were consulted at all levels, participatory research made together with the farmers under their cooperatives with guidance of an expert, writing and submitting SMART proposals and finally lobby mapping and stakeholder analysis. Consultations were done in form of meetings with farmers at regional levels, meetings with local government structures, the parliament of Uganda and sectoral committees of parliament, URA, Ministry of Finance committee and the Minister and finally the president of Uganda. Because of FACT Methodology, relevant issues affecting farmers critical of which were taxes were collected, registered, organised and then presented to key stakeholders based on evidence.”
A bigger number of farmers/co-operators and stakeholders participated in the FACT meetings. Stakeholder involvement took a bottom up approach and this gave UCA an advantage to the fact that farmers knew well their major challenge, the gravity of the challenge and the methodology of lobbying government for a tax waiver.
Receipt of Presidential directive
Following several engagements, meetings and written petitions by the Cooperative movement headed by UCA, the President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni wrote a letter to the Prime Minister requesting for immediate abolition of taxes in Cooperatives. “I am especially concerned of the SACCOs formed by the rural communities in the country. If we tax their interest on their little savings and returns, then we will not be demonstrating government’s commitment to the revitalization of Cooperatives which is one of our key strategic interventions for promoting financial inclusion and economic growth.”
UCA followed the matter and wrote a proposal to the Prime minister, organised a consulting meeting with big Cooperatives and wrote a letter to the Ministry of finance, planning and economic development to immediately expedite the process by implementing the presidential directive “Together we have come up with a proposal aimed at abolishing taxation on SACCO’s while also supporting the government to restart the cooperative bank for the cooperative movement. We feel this will be a win-win situation for both parties.”
This was not done as per UCA expectations which required more use of FACT. Timing was key as elections were in the offing, having taxation as a critical issue, whom to consult and lobby off course top politicians and the approach by using all available avenues mostly the media and farmer representatives meeting the president directly and explaining their case.
Being an election mood due for February 18th 2016 and farmers in Uganda being a critical mass of above 75% of the population, the Prime minister directed the finance ministry to implement presidential directive. Finally the president intervened and backed co-operators/farmers which saw the Minister of finance directing the URA to waive off all tax arrears on SACCOS.
Lobbying
Ivans view on lobbying: “It is better to understand the interests of the person you are lobbying and then give better alternatives than just asking”. The government was happy with the proposals by the Cooperatives which were beyond asking for their favour but giving better alternatives to government. The Co-operators proposed to government that since government development strategy is to set up a Cooperative Bank by injecting in 15 Billion Uganda shillings, the Co-operators would instead use the saved monies from taxes to capitalise their own Bank by themselves and then government re -allocates this money to other development areas.
Conclusions
Ivan: “To succeed in lobbying and advocating for sustainable policy proposals on behalf of farmers and farmer organisations, our organisations need better planning through involvement/consultation of all stakeholders at all levels so that you build accountability, be able to raise informed and relevant issues that are evidence based. This can be achieved by applying the FACT Methodology.”
