Following the success of Uganda Revenue Authority's (URA) scientific taxation system, countries under the African Tax Administration Forum have converged in Kampala to benchmark how the tax body is deploying science-based models to grow revenue.

The forum conference has representatives from more than thirteen African countries that are members of African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF). These are: Angola, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, South Africa, South Sudan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Senegal among others.

The minister of State for Finance-General Duties, Henry Musasizi while presiding over the opening of the four day training, encouraged participants to support the government's intervention to build an economy that is self- reliant.

Musasizi said the science model approach provides the innovative edge required to ensure that the country achieves optimal revenue mobilisation especially in industrial & manufacturing sectors as the country strives to be economically independent.

He appealed to participants to share ideas about how they can improve the tax to GDP ratio so that African economies are able to substantially finance their budget.

URA Commissioner General, John Musinguzi, said that as the country drives into the future, revenue collection will be guided by science, adding that this will support the actual processes of coming up with tax assessment.

He explained that the tax body is using Applied Science (input and output co-efficiency), data analysis and forensic science to close gaps in revenue leakages.

"Uganda Revenue Authority and the government of Uganda is doing so well in this area that is why you have so many African countries coming here to benchmark and learn from us how we are setting this," he said.

According to URA, the traditional taxation measures will not be used for sectors like manufacturing and imports since people continue to under-declare.