URA rearrests Fuelex boss for invading taxes

arrest
arrest
The Uganda Revenue Authority has rearrested the owner of Fuelex fuel stations for allegedly smuggling into the country fuel and evading taxes.

John Imaniraguha was arrested at Entebbe International airport as he attempted to flee the country with his family, though his next destination was not known at the time of filing this story.

The businessman who was paraded before the media at URA's Nakawa head office, had two days go been arrested by URA's law enforcement officers who handed him over to Jinja Road Police Station but he vanished under unexplained circumstances.

While addressing the media shortly after his arrest, Sarah Banage, the Assistant Commissioner Public and Corporate Affairs, said the arrest of Imaniraguha is a relief, eight years after being on the wanted list.

She added that the businessman's acts of smuggling fuel and selling it at a lower market price, had distorted the fuel industry and that his eventual arrest will level the fuel market ground.

Banage explained that they have enough evidence to pin Imaniraguha in courts of law and that very soon, they will be produced him before the Anti-Corruption Court and formally charged.

This is not the first time that the businessman finds himself in the wrong books of the tax body.

In 2010, URA closed his Nalukolongo Fuelex branch over tax evasion of over shillings 42 million.

The closure of Nalukolongo Fuelex station followed intelligence information that a tanker loaded with about 50,000 litres of fuel worth shillings 42 million had been offloaded at his station and yet the same tanker had earlier been cleared by URA at Busia border as being destined for Congo, meaning it had been exempted from paying taxes.

-URN