Court Halts KCCA Move To Tax Obote Foundation

The High Court in Kampala on Tuesday temporarily stopped Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) from forcefully collecting a disputed property tax from the Milton Obote Foundation until the substantive suit is determined.

The temporary injunction was granted by Deputy Registrar Tadeo Asiimwe.

The disputed property tax amounting to over 169 million shillings is in regard to Uganda House, a property of Milton Obote Foundation (MOF) located on Plot 10 Kampala Road in Kampala.

Registrar Asiimwe thanked KCCA for not putting up resistance to the application as it had been with other applications for interim stay. This was after KCCA lawyer Winnie Kabeije conceded to the temporary injunction that MOF had sought.

Kabeije also told court that both parties were engaged in several negotiations aimed at reconciling the disputed figures.

Subsequently, court tasked the KCCA lawyer to update the trial judge on September 23 on these negotiation developments when the substantive suit comes up for hearing.

Constitutional lawyer Peter Walubiri, who represented MOF in court, welcomed the court decision.

The Foundation was established in 1963 to support the political activities of the then ruling Uganda People’s Congress party (UPC), now in the opposition. It among others deals in real estate, owns prime properties including Uganda House .UPC and MOF were founded by former President Milton Obote.

In its application for interim stay, the Foundation had expressed fear that it would suffer irreparable business loss if the court does not temporarily stop KCCA from forcefully collecting the disputed property tax until the main suit is determined.

According to the law suit, the property tax battle between the two began in July 2009 when MOF was served with a property rates Demand Note from KCC for the year 2008/09 totaling to Shillings 38 million.

The Foundation’s case is being supported by an affidavit of Celestino Mindra, the general manager. Mindra argues that Milton Obote Foundation only owed KCC only 3.8 million shillings and that they eventually cleared.

He further argues that KCCA has continued to flood them with Demand Notes of different property fees one after the other and yet in actual sense, they had cleared all the property dues to zero balance, hence this suit.