Commerce vs Independence

SECOND FLOOR - My new best friends at the Uganda Revenue Authority held a press conference on Tuesday to give more details about how some of their officials have been conniving with license plate makers to issue 'fake' or duplicate plates. Having gotten that out of the way, they turned to the Transparency International survey which ranked them as the most corrupt tax body in the region and said the survey was, ahem, fake. URA bosses said that because 60 per cent of the sample was made up of people from rural areas -- and who do not "interface" with URA, it could not be representative or accurate. First of all, that is wrong' opinion polls try as much as possible to mirror the national demographics and majority of Ugandans live in rural areas. Secondly, notice that the focus has shifted away from evil Monitor which reported the survey, to the survey itself. No word yet on the advertising ban and the Commissioner General is reportedly too busy to take calls. Should we run the story of the advertising ban now or give diplomacy a chance? Meanwhile, I learnt something interesting today; at least two of the top PR honchos at URA, the same people talking into Kagina's ears, are former New Vision (our competition) reporters/sub-editors. Go figure!