Uganda, April 25 -- For a whole week, traders around the country closed their shops because of a new tax verification system called the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS) introduced by the tax authority.

The recent traders' strike single incident made clear the absolute lack of willingness of many people to pay their taxes transparently, and it highlighted the fact that many people evade payment of taxes.

Yet we all know that it is these taxes that are supposed to be used to provide public services for the population. With the suspension of aid and loans from the World Bank and other economic downturns that resulted from local and international economic shocks from the recent past, now more than ever, we need to...