Mon, 06 Mar 2017 10:26:00 +0000
By Kalobwe Bwalya
THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has fired 15 officers on allegations of smuggling and corruption, it has been disclosed.
And the authority has recorded a K94 million surplus over its February 2017 revenue collection target.
ZRA Commissioner General Kinsley Chanda said the authority was in hot pursuit of over 72,000 vehicles which had been smuggled into the country; and so far some have been impounded but others have eluded the dragnet.
Mr Chanda said of the total number of 72,842 smuggled vehicles, 45,000 were still missing and believed hidden.
In an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Chanda said smuggling cases were in two categories – those which managed to evade the system completely and others being facilitated by ZRA officers.
“Once we impound a truck that has been smuggled we do investigate and our investigations sometimes indicate that these smugglers manage to get through the borders without our involvement and in some cases our officers are involved,” Mr Chanda said.
Mr Chanda said once it was established that some officers were involved in facilitating under- evaluation, miscalculation or trans-smuggling, the commission took appropriate disciplinary action against erring officers.
He was happy that after firing some of the culprits, incidences of smuggling and corruption involving ZRA officers had reduced and the authority hoped that it would get to zero percent.
The commissioner general disclosed that ZRA collected K94 million surplus above its February revenue target.
Mr Chanda said the authority had set a K2.4 billion target for February and managed to beat it owing to the hard work by officers, enabling the authority to beat its target three months in a row from December last year.
Meanwhile, Mr Chands said ZRA was working with the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) to reconcile the records in its hunt for the 45,000 smuggled vehicles that entered the country.
He said there was a mismatch of records and the authority was making corrections by identifying those vehicles that were smuggled but registered by RTSA and were not in the data base.
Mr Chanda also revealed that the authority collected K1.4 million from the joint motor vehicle amnesty campaign exercise with RTSA undertaken in November 2016.
