Smuggling on Uganda’s lakes costs state $509m a year

Uganda Revenue Authority Commissioner-General John Musinguzi.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has launched a campaign to stem the surge of smuggling across the country’s major lakes, a growing underground economy that is costing the national treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

The tax agency says it is losing vast sums of revenue to illicit trade on Lakes Victoria and Albert, where smugglers exploit the vast waters and porous border crossings to move untaxed goods under the cover of darkness.