Guard puts Mukono Town Clerk on gunpoint-orders him out of factory he had gone to close for tax non compliance.
Mukono Central Division Council has rebuked the high level of impunity exhibited by the administrators of Seret Grains Uganda Limited, for reaching to an extent of putting the acting division town clerk on gunpoint, ordering him to vacate their factory premises.
Seret Grains is a company which deals in cereals, located in Kigombya, along Kampala-Jinja highway in Mukono Central Division, Mukono Municipality.
Allan Mawanda, the Mukono Central division speaker on Friday informed his council during the session that the town clerk, Abubaker Wassajja, who had on Tuesday gone to Seret Grains to execute the closure notice for failure to pay taxes for over three consecutive years ever since this company’s inception was put on gun point by one of the unidentified private security guards belonging to Arrows Security.
Mawanda said that Wassajja together with the division security officer, Tony Waman and some of the security personnel had gone to Seret at around 10:00am to ask its administrators to either pay the taxes or close.
“Unfortunately; the division security personnel were denied entrance into the factory, allowing only Wassajja and Waman. After knowing their intention into the factory, the administrators called the private security guard who asked the duo to get out,” he said.
Wassajja told this publication that after failing to reach an understanding with the company human resource officer, Pual Luyombya and her deputy Brenda Kukunda, he asked them to have the factory closed until they pay the taxes.
However, he was given one of the directors to talk to them on phone who arrogantly asked him to get out of their company as he told them how they had accumulated debts in unpaid taxes.
They later instructed their security to throw Wassajja and Waman out of the company. At this moment, Wassajja called Mukono Police for security to beef him up.
The private security guard who first asked Wassajja to get out as per the orders given to him, when he learnt that he had called for police officers, he went for his gun, cocked it and asked them to get out immediately without any hesitation if they wanted life.
“At that point, we had no option but to get out of the factory as the security guard had ordered us to do. That is the kind of situation we are sometimes exposed to, more so when it comes to handling these so-called investors who believe they are above the law,” he miserably stated.
According to the local government act, Wassajja highlighted some of the taxes which Seret Grains had refused to pay including; trading licence and local service tax, with the money now amounting to over five million shillings.
He said that for those years, the division officials have been getting hardships to get access into the company as they are always locked outside.
“As Mukono Central Division, we agreed to have such companies closed until they pay their taxes,” he said.
Wassajja said he had reported the matter to Mukono Division Police including threatening violence, blocking council officers on duty from doing their official work, among others.
With that kind of impunity, Wassajja said that the workers in this factory when they get injured on duty to the extent of losing their body parts, they are not compensated as per the labour laws.
Mawanda asked the government through the line ministries, including, internal affairs, labour, trade and Police to intervene and put such investors to order.
Councilor Fibi Babirye said it’s unfortunate that big companies like Seret Grains refuse to pay taxes, the money which is used to facilitate the running of the council work and Central government.
“We have very many factories in our jurisdiction, a clear indication that we have a very wide tax base but a good number of those do not want to pay tax. It’s high time the government backs us up, to such culprits reprimanded,” she said.
The Seret Grains Company human resource officer, Luyombya could not agree to give a comment upon what had transpired. For not paying the taxes, he said he was new in the company.