Biesshop Ger Odock

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Is my TAX accounted for...?!

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TAX remission is age old, but many of us seldom interact to discuss it. Many more hardly ever interrogate where the TAX that we pay ends up on purchase simplistic items such as a match box, a candle or a bar of soap but on the flip side, Tax Justice is a fairly new concept that is slowly taking root in Africa following cross country calls by citizens, CSOs and development partners for Governments to account for the taxes that are collected and to provide quality services on time. To guarantee ownership, commitment and sustainability, the concept of Tax Justice Campaign front loads the  “common citizen”  in all its engagements. In-depth understanding by practitioners and successful application by actual tax payers is strongly hinged on the three pillars of Human Rights Based Approach – empowerment, solidarity and campaigns. While there are various ways of collecting taxes, most African states generate most of their local revenue from the realms of the informal...
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Skills in Project Management or Field Knowledge: Which one is KEY?

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What is the difference between senior and junior project managers in terms of decision making. More specifically, while senior managers focus on potential project difficulties, junior managers are more easily swayed by their project’s plan and its deficiencies. Spotting problems with your plan and being able to foresee difficulties are both essential skills for a project manager, but my argument is that while the first one can be acquired by anyone willing to put in the needed effort, the second skill is much harder to develop. This is why I believe in the importance of managing a project in a field you master. Up to this point, I am certain not everyone shares this view. Some people indeed hold the opinion that project management is a “standalone” skill: once you master the mechanics, you can apply it to any context.  In the same vein, it could be argued that even a project manager with a lot of experience in a given field cannot possibly hope to master every single aspect ...
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To RAID or not to RAID?

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A few weeks ago I was assisting a project manager with a troubled project.  We reviewed the documentation from the beginning, starting with the usual suspects: project design, work plans, schedule just to mention a few.  They all seemed fairly straightforward and understandable.  Once we got to the status reporting though, confusion started. This project’s status reports were spreadsheets about 10 pages long.  Every week the team was only able to discuss only about 3 pages’ worth of information, and they were mostly risks. “Why is this so long, what’s in it?” I asked him. He answered that it was his RAID Log, which he used to run Status Meetings. He wanted to be certain not to miss anything, so he was careful to include every item related to the project and classify it as R (risk); A (action); I (issue) or D (dependency) in this giant spreadsheet. As the first section was ‘Risks’ they were certainly addressed. So, most of the discussion in his weekly status meetin...
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Why it is important to define Tax justice as a human rights issue

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On the 10th December 2018, Uganda celebrated the 70th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights, a commitment that gave birth to the human rights movement. Uganda is a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ICESR), the International Covenant on Political and Civil rights and the International covenant on the Rights of a child, the African charter on human and people’s rights, African Charter on the rights and welfare of the child, among others and has a bill of rights in its constitution to guarantee these rights. Almost all these treaties and constitution impose an obligation on the state to ‘undertake measures’ for the implementation of these rights, Al Since 1948, a lot of progress has been made on many a fronts (like creation of Human Rights Bodies(Human Rights Commission, Equal opportunities Commission, etc), Courts, watch dogs, etc) when it comes to attainment and enjoyment of these human rights. However, a...
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