RED TAPE AND ROTTING GOODS: THE HIDDEN COST OF DELAYS AT URA
Imagine having perishable goods that must be auctioned pursuant to a court order delivered by a High Court judge. The only thing standing between preserving their value and total loss is clearance from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). What should be a straightforward administrative process instead turns into a frustrating nightmare marathon of bureaucracy.
Officials from the Legal Services and Board Affairs Department and the Customs Department shuttle applicants from one office to another, despite repeated pleas that the goods are deteriorating by the day. Daily visits yield little more than assurances that “the matter is being worked on” while files gather dust on desks.
At times, the cold stares and dismissive attitudes encountered by some applicants create the impression that unofficial facilitation may be expected before any meaningful action is taken. Meanwhile, those seeking lawful clearance remain trapped in endless corridors of delay, uncertainty, and silence.
As weeks turn into months, the perishable goods continue to deteriorate. By the time clearance is finally granted, the products may have lost much or all of their value. The owners suffer substantial financial losses from income that could have been earned through the auction, while more importantly URA also loses potential tax revenue that would have been collected from a timely sale.
According to affected parties, this is far from an isolated incident. Similar delays, often stretching beyond four months, have become a recurring experience for numerous clients, raising serious concerns about efficiency, accountability, and the cost of bureaucratic inertia within the URA system.
When government processes intended to facilitate lawful transactions instead destroy value, everyone loses the business owner, the courts, the tax authority, and ultimately the economy.
For many clients dealing with URA, this has become a familiar story. Frustration has reached such alarming levels that some aggrieved parties have reportedly contemplated confronting managers over what they perceive as endless delays and deliberate obstruction of their matters.
The growing frustration has prompted calls for the establishment of an independent compliance office to monitor the conduct of officials, ensure timely handling of matters, and strengthen accountability within the institution.
A CASE STUDY IN DELAY
One such ordeal began in March this year when goods earmarked for auction were advertised in newspapers pursuant to a COURT ORDER. The court had directed that the goods be auctioned by the successful litigant and that an inventory report be filed before the High Court.
In compliance with the court directive, a request was submitted to URA’s Legal Services Department toward the end of March seeking approval to proceed with the auction.
As part of its standard procedure, the Legal Services Department was required to verify the authenticity of the court order. Surprisingly, this process took an entire month. Once verification was completed, an internal memo was forwarded to the Customs Legal Department, and then it reached the customs warehouse.
What followed was a bureaucratic merry-go-round
Upon receiving the file, customs officials began requesting court judgments and raising legal questions that had been addressed during the earlier verification stage by the Legal Services Department. Rather than advancing the process, they appeared to reopen issues that had already been settled.
Effectively, the applicant was taken back to square one despite having already lost a month navigating internal procedures at the legal department.
As the second month passed, officials repeatedly requested documents, all of which were promptly supplied, yet little progress was made. Daily visits to their offices produced the same response: “We are working on it.”
It was also observed that many officers spend several hours in meetings up to three times a week and often fail to delegate their responsibilities during these periods. As a result, clients seeking services are left waiting and frequently become dissatisfied due to the delays.
After sitting on the matter for weeks, the responsible customs officer eventually escalated the file to an immediate supervisor. However, the delays only intensified. The supervisor spent another month reviewing the file and requesting documents that had already been submitted to the junior officer. Each day brought fresh promises of action, but no tangible movement.
THIRD MONTH
By the third month, the goods awaiting auction continued to depreciate in value, undermining the very purpose of the court-ordered sale.
Where documentation clearance involves the Systems Department, timelines often become significantly delayed. This is largely due to ongoing system upgrades, the integration of new staff, and the accumulation of unresolved legacy issues, all of which contribute to inefficiencies. Furthermore, the department appears to lack contingency plans (Plan B) for addressing certain challenges when they arise.
The file eventually landed on the desk of the Customs Manager, where it reportedly remained dormant for yet another month. Only after persistent follow-ups and mounting frustration was a report finally sent back to the Legal Services Department for further guidance.
FOURTH MONTH
Approaching the fourth month, the file returned to the Legal Services Department, where another lengthy review process loomed. Expectations were that it would take an additional month before legal officers could return recommendations to Customs manager for implementation of the court order.
The result is a process stretching beyond five months for a matter that should have been both straightforward and time-sensitive.
The lingering question is unavoidable: Are these delays the result of incompetence, institutional inefficiency, or a system designed to frustrate clients into seeking unofficial shortcuts?
But why even check court orders when even everything was uploaded on the computer systems and is verified and authentic. That is why this system was developed.
Whatever the explanation, the consequences are real. By the time the process is concluded, the goods may have lost a significant portion of their value, leaving all parties worse off and undermining public confidence in the efficiency and professionalism of the institution.
For businesses and individuals relying on the timely execution of court orders, such delays translate into financial losses, wasted time, and a growing perception that justice delayed is not only justice denied it is value destroyed.
WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
The Constitutional Court recently ruled that the practice of requiring court orders to be cleared by government institutions before execution is illegal. The Court held that the practice undermines judicial independence and violates the Constitution.
According to the ruling, government agencies should only verify the authenticity of court orders and should not subject them to additional approval processes.
The judgment arose from a petition filed in 2023 by the Court Bailiffs Association against the Attorney General. The petition challenged provisions of the Judicature (Court Bailiffs) Rules, 2022, and highlighted persistent interference and delays by various government agencies in the execution of court orders.
In a landmark decision delivered this year, the panel, headed by Dr. Flavian Zeija, then Deputy Chief Justice, observed that the clearance requirement had made the work of court bailiffs unnecessarily cumbersome and costly. Some bailiffs reportedly had to make payments at various clearance points before carrying out their duties.
While acknowledging the need for verification, the Court emphasised that such scrutiny should be limited strictly to confirming the authenticity of court processes. It stressed that verification must never be used as a basis to question, delay, suspend, or obstruct the execution of lawful court orders.
The ruling raises an important question for agencies such as URA: If the Constitutional Court has already determined that government institutions should not obstruct or delay the execution of court orders beyond verifying their authenticity, why do processes that effectively amount to clearance and repeated review continue to persist?
Until that question is answered, businesses, litigants, and the wider economy will continue to bear the cost of delays that destroy value long before justice can be realised.
