Companies clash over South Sudan cargo tracking deal

A French-Canadian multinational cargo tracking firm, K-Polygenese SAS, has accused officials from the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) of not only de-campaigning them but also praising their “weak” competitor in front of their (K-Polygenese SAS) clients.

Mr Edgar David Musoke, the head of Lincoln Logistics Ltd, a Ugandan subsidiary of K-Polygenese SAS Multinational, said on Monday that certain URA officials during last week’s meeting with their counterparts from South Sudan Revenue Authority (SSRA), branded K-Polygenese SAS as an incompetent and weak firm that failed to effectively manage South Sudan’s cargo tracking technology, leading to its suspension in 2021.

SSRA officials led by their Commissioner General, Mr Africano Mande, made a benchmarking visit to their Ugandan counterparts led by commissioner general John Musinguzi, where the former unveiled plans of collaborating with another firm, Invesco, to provide cargo-tracking technology.

“Collections from Customs have been low, pushing us to make tough decisions to improve. Invesco’s services will help us improve collections and even exceed our targets,” Mr Mande said, according to January 28 statement by URA.

In a lengthy February 5 statement, Mr Musoke said URA officials used this meeting to demean their firm yet it is among the biggest technology supplier in the world.

He said URA officials further alleged that South Sudan terminated the contract of providing cargo tracking services it had given to K-Polygone Services over compliance issues on December 9, 2021.

“Whereas it is true that the contract of K-Polygone was temporarily suspended, the cause was a local Ugandan company called Invesco, working with our then local Uganda sub-agent Sunco Ltd, who had signed a memorandum of understanding with URA to carry out all the certification of all cargo from/through Uganda to DR Congo and South Sudan yet it did not have any direct contracts with the mentioned countries,” he said.

The suspension was, however, lifted on October 25, 2022 by the Trade minister.

When contacted for a comment, the URA public relations manager, Mr Robert Lumanyika, referred us to the Assistant Commissioner of Public and Corporate Affairs, Mr Ibrahim Bbosa.

In a brief telephone interview, Mr Bbosa said: “I am in a meeting, I will call you back,” and hung up. He had not returned the call by the time of filing this story.

However, a senior official at URA, who preferred anonymity in order to speak freely, told this publication that the two companies are fighting their own superiority war but have decided to drag in URA, which is not fair.

“It is the government of DR Congo that introduced Invesco to Uganda and it is the South Sudan government that introduced K-Polygone Multinational to Uganda. Uganda has never dealt with those companies because we at URA are using our cargo tracking system,” he said.