Ibrahim Kibuuka Bbossa (pictured), the amiable publicist has in a rather unexpected move tendered his resignation at the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) after close to three years at the helm of the Public and Corporate Affairs Division.
The PR and marketing Guru who took on the mantle of the URA Spokesperson at the back end of 2021 when he was appointed as the Assistant Commissioner Public and Corporate Affairs in the Commissioner General’s office, has been at the forefront of URA’s public-facing agenda setting initiatives at a time when the revenue body has been undergoing massive transformation steered by the Commissioner General – John R Musinguzi.
This transformation was firmly grounded under the pillars of patriotism, professionalism and integrity.
A proponent of socially responsible business practices, Bbossa approached his job with absolute transparency and accountability to all URA’s stakeholders.
This is a trait that has been best exemplified by his culture of not leaving an inquiry on the digital media platforms without a response. This responsiveness also extended to the inquiries made by the members of the 4th estate to URA, a virtue that not only made him a media darling but also drew the URA closer to the citizens.
Bbossa will fondly remember his time at URA for a number of initiatives, including the Mpa E Receipt Yange campaign, which promoted the culture of e-receipt issuance among Ugandans—the first integrated marketing campaign implemented by Uganda Revenue Authority that saw the organisation traverse all regions of the country with the gospel of the e-receipt.
He has also overseen a period of digital communication renaissance that has seen the URA brand leverage its digital presence much more through creative communication campaigns and consolidate the power of digital broadcasting through URA TV.
In his own words, Bbossa reckons that he realised much earlier in his URA tenure that there would be no effective public relations execution for a revenue body without effective tax education, and he married the two to resounding success, putting the education of the taxpayer before the tax payment demands.
He advocated for this arrangement with the understanding that effective tax mobilisation could only happen in a society where people knew what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
At the time of his resignation, Bbossa had developed the tax education function, which was simply a unit within the Public and Corporate Affairs Division before him, into a full-blown Division of its own with a significantly bigger resource envelope.
This increased resourcing by the URA management and board was an affirmation that the tax education mission is very important to URA.
A pioneer leader of the Tax Education Division, which he has been serving as the first Assistant Commissioner at the time of his resignation, Bbossa is leaving behind a team that is empowered with all the technical know-how and guile to take the gospel of tax education to every household in Uganda through a robust tax education and taxpayer education strategy.
Tasked with announcing his next move, Bbossa remained coy, only intimating this publication: “You’ll know soon enough. We are actually going to be working even more closely.”
