Great Aubrey Memorial School Tororo in trouble over failure to pay URA taxes

By Nathan Ngobi

Great Aubrey Memorial college located at UCI village in Osukuru sub county Tororo district could reportedly face  heavy tax penalties for failure to pay URA taxes over a long period of time.

The school is a private owned business   institution run and managed by the man of God   Rev. Fr. Centurio Olaboro, the Tororo Archdiocese’s coordinator for peace and justice has been in existence for close to 30 years years.

According to the whistleblower who never wanted to be disclosed told this media house that Fr. Centurio started the school many years back but he never remitted URA taxes and NSSF funds as required by the laws.

The whistleblower revealed that Olaboro while recruiting workers, mainly the teaching staff, makes sure they sign two separate appointment letters one shows little salary while the other one indicates that the money could be given cash in  hands to fail URA and NSSF to detect the fraud and therefore dodge taxes.

He under declares the salaries, there are people who are  given appointment letters which reflect a lower amount they are paid and  this is what they  submit  to the bank, but in reality, a person earns far different.

There are two books one you sign for the half like if you are earning 500,000/= you sign in the book 230,000 so that it is not taxable and the Government can not come in to tax for payee.

There are people who are getting full salary but they do not present it to the Government authority for payee.

 While for NSSF they are so selective you find that there are few people who subscribe to the NSSF, the majority nothing.

There is a book in the bursar’s office which proves you earn a salary but they indicate that it is a saving for the teachers Sacco yet the teachers have their own Sacco called Great Aubrey Teachers Sacco (GATS) but not also officially registered.

There is also an auditor one Emuloni who was chased. The auditor was advising the school on how to do accountability.

The school was getting USE funds (money from the Government)  but accounting for it was hard.

He asked the administration to put all the teachers in NSSF because he was the one who could go to Kampala to present the accountability.

The auditor was chased out of school after he included his names on the list of those to benefit from  the NSSF list.

The payee which is supposed to go to the URA is under-declared and he (Olaboro) does not pay anything, the source added.

He said that Olaboro in order to dodge the taxes he under declared the salaries from 230, 000 to 200, 000 and 180, 000 where the government cannot tax them.

There is no  teacher who earns 200,000 but on their appointment letters it indicates though in reality they earn between 500, 000 and 1 million (and above).

Then the local service taxes which are supposed to be paid to the town council he does not  remit  it to Osukuru town council. the source revealed.

There are over 80 employees but also under declares to the town council.

 In a nutshell there are two types of fraud under declaring salaries and failure to pay URA payee while few people are paid lower salary at centenary bank Tororo branch.

When we contacted URA assistant commissioner corporate affairs Ibrahim Bossa said that URA would organize a team of officers who are going to visit the place with auditors and if they discover that the information is true the school authority is to face taxable punishments.

“We shall move there any time with our team of auditors to carry out verification exercises and later the school will pay as URA recovers their taxes” Bossa added.

However, when we contacted Rev. Fr. Olaboro about the matter instead he passed over his phone to George Alfred Obore, the chairperson of the land commission in the Archdiocese of Tororo who never had kind words for us.

“Fr. Olaboro is a holy man of God leave him…… who will bury you even if a protestant priest or a Muslim they will all represent Fr. Olaboro at that time” Obore said.

They went ahead and said that ask John Lucky Okware who will bury him too?

You find Rev. Fr. Olaboro being a good man but if it was me Obore I would get you and box you down how can you reveal every information about the priest?