URA Wins Appeal, to Rent Office Space in Sudhir’uparelia’s Pearl Tower for Shs 18.7 Billion
KAMPALA – July 1, 2025 – The Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) Appeals Tribunal has upheld the Uganda Revenue Authority’s (URA) decision to lease office space in businessman Sudhir Ruparelia’s Pearl Tower One, dismissing a challenge from a rival bidder and clearing the way for a three-year rental agreement worth Shs 18.7 billion.
The ruling, delivered on June 30, 2025, brings to a close a legal dispute initiated by Twed Property Development Limited (TWED), which had contested the fairness of the procurement process.
The controversy began in April when URA called for bids to secure office space within Kampala’s central business district. Following an evaluation process, URA’s accounting officer announced in May that the contract had been awarded to Speke Hotel (1996) Limited, the operator of the newly completed Pearl Tower One.
URA had justified its selection by stating that Pearl Tower met a critical requirement: providing over 1,000 parking slots, a necessity for housing the large government agency.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, TWED, which had offered space in its 23-story Twed Heights building on Lourdel Road, filed an appeal with the tribunal on June 10, 2025. The company argued that URA’s decision was flawed on two primary grounds.
Firstly, TWED claimed that Pearl Tower One did not possess the required number of parking spaces, asserting that the structural plans submitted to the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) showed a maximum of 200 slots. Secondly, it accused URA’s accounting officer of failing to properly evaluate the bid and the subsequent evaluation report before making the award.
A virtual hearing was conducted on June 23 by a tribunal panel chaired by Nelson Nerima. After reviewing submissions from all parties, including Speke Hotel, which maintained its bid was fully compliant, the tribunal found in favour of URA and Speke.
In its detailed decision, the tribunal clarified that procurement regulations permit an accounting officer to investigate complaints and gather additional evidence, such as conducting a site inspection, especially when new allegations arise. This process was triggered after a whistleblower raised concerns about the parking.
The tribunal noted that it was contradictory for TWED to rely on unverified external information to challenge the bid while simultaneously faulting URA for conducting due diligence to verify the claims. The subsequent verification visit confirmed that Speke Hotel could provide 312 on-site parking slots, with an additional 100 off-site slots located on plots 1, 6, 7, and 9 within the permitted 100-meter radius, as explicitly allowed by the bidding document.
The judges further dismissed TWED’s argument that the parking spaces needed to be physically marked at the time of bid submission, stating this was a requirement to be fulfilled after the contract is signed. They also clarified that outdoor parking landscaping does not require the same stringent regulatory approvals as building structures.
With the application dismissed in its entirety, the tribunal affirmed that URA’s procurement process was conducted fairly, in compliance with all requirements, and that the decision to award the contract to Speke Hotel was proper.
Nakawa Tower Saga Continues
The decision means URA will proceed with renting space in Sudhir’s tower, a move that highlights the tax body’s ongoing struggle for adequate office space. This is despite URA having inaugurated a state-of-the-art, Shs 140 billion, 22-storey headquarters in Nakawa in 2019.
The Nakawa Tower, intended to consolidate URA’s operations, has repeatedly been declared “too small” to accommodate the entire agency, forcing it to maintain multiple rented offices across the city. The Shs 18.7 billion rental contract for Pearl Tower One underscores the continued financial burden of this spatial deficiency.
