05 How the State Responded to the COVID – 19 Induced Crisis The Government stimulus and recovery package Government borrowed funds from the IMF, World Bank and other funding institutions to provide immediate fiscal and monetary response measures in what it referred to as a “stimulus package.” These aimed to support business recovery and enable citizens to weather the effects of the pandemic. Government instituted a number of tax relief measures to help businesses address their short- term liquidity needs. These included a deferment on payment of Corporate Income Tax or Presumptive tax and PAYE for Corporations and Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism, manufacturing, horticulture or floriculture sectors. Government also waived all interest and penalties on tax arrears accumulated before 1st July 2020 to lessen the tax liability for businesses that voluntarily complied with their tax obligations. Payments of VAT refunds to businesses were also expedited by the Uganda Revenue Authority. However, it must be noted that the largest section of the private sector did not benefit from these tax measures as the process for their implementation was delayed and opaque in nature. 12 On the fiscal spending side, government allocated funds to a number of programmes aimed at providing economic relief to businesses impacted by the pandemic. These included: • funding for agriculture inputs and entities that support the sector; • seed capital funding to organized special interest groups under the Youth Fund, Women Entrepreneurship Fund and the ‘Emyooga’ Talent Support scheme; • funding to the Uganda Development Bank to offer low interest credit to manufacturing, agribusiness and other private sector firms; • funding to the Uganda Development Corporation for public-private partnership investments to facilitate import substitution and export promotion; • expediting the payment of arrears owed by Government to private sector firms; • provision for Ugandan businesses to reschedule their contributions to the National Social Security Fund for 3 months without accumulating penalty. Research on the Influence of International Financial Institutions on Uganda’s COVID – 19 Recovery Agenda