One of Uganda’s most illustrious entrepreneurial and value-chain-addition success stories, Good African Coffee a popular coffee roasting and packaging company and coffee restaurant chain owned by Andrew Rugasira was yesterday closed by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) over unpaid tax arrears.
URA has stated that the company was closed so that they could comply with payment of tax.
“This closure was intended to first exert pressure and inconvenience on them so that they do comply,” Stanley Kabyemera URA’s Manager Debt Collection stated.
Vincent Seruma, the URA corporate affairs boss stated that Good African Coffee has accumulated a debt of Shs1.2b in taxes in a period of three years. The factory owes taxes worth Shs615,743,149 while coffee restaurant chain owes Shs609,062,621.
He stated that the business will be opened after the taxes are cleared.
Good African Coffee has been hailed for empowering farmers at the grassroots through providing ready market for their coffee. The company made a breakthrough after it started to export locally produced and processed coffee to the internationally market. Good African Coffee is on the shelves in UK.