President Yoweri Museveni has returned the Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, 2016 back to Parliament for reconsideration duty on incoming international calls. The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga informed parliament that the President noted that the removal of excise duty would not lead to an increase of incoming international calls but will target the illegal operators who lead to loss of government revenue.

Museveni said that when Uganda joined the one area network in 2015, incoming calls reduced attributing this to incoming international calls terminating in Kenya and South Sudan and yet routed to Uganda as domestic calls thereby denying Uganda and the telecom companies excise duty and revenue respectively. He said that it is not calls being terminated in Kenya and South Sudan that are a problem. The presence of illegal sim boxes both within Uganda and at the borders is the issue leading to these losses. He said that reinstating excise duty on these calls is one way of curbing the loss of revenue.

Kadaga sent the Bill to the Committee of Finance, Planning and Economic Development for consideration report to parliament.

In other news, Parliament passed a Motion authorizing the increase in capital of the Bank of Uganda to shs1.1 trillion over the next two financial years. The Minister of State for Finance,  David Bahati who moved the Motion  said that the capital of Bank of Uganda is currently 860 billion shillings which makes the conducting of monetary operations difficult.

The approved  resolution was to increase the authorised capital of Bank of Uganda by 240 billion shillings for  two financial years. Parliament increased the budget provision for Bank of Uganda capitalisation to 860 billion shillings  in the 2015/2016 financial year out of the total shs1.1 trillion required.