ZRA’s anti-smuggling stance commended

ZAMBIA Revenue Authority (ZRA) has done well to suspend some of

smuggling syndicate because most of these illegal activities were aided

said.

Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday, PTAZ secretary general Benson Tembo said the impunity with which some Z A officers engaged in illegal activities was indication a big problem.

Mr. Tembo said people who got their jobs on a silver platter could never be expected to execute their tasks diligently. “It is true that smuggling is aided especially where you see people that are supposed to enforce the law being suspended or retired. That tells you we have a problem. In a situation where you see tankers being impounded for smuggling, then you know the problem is knee deep,” said Mr. Tembo.

“The desire for money by the people who are supposed to enforce the law is too much and it goes back to the way some of these officers manning our borders are recruited because someone recruited in a transparent manner and subjected to all manner of scrutiny can never do something that can risk the job he or she suffered to get,” Mr. Tembo said.

He said as long as individuals in the transport sector continued worked in isolation, the fight against smuggling would remain a farce. “When you are working as a unit, like we have been doing in PTAZ, you will see that we know each truck that is loading out there such that as it is coming into the country, we know that it is carrying a genuine commodity,” said Mr Tembo.

its officers following the busting of a

by them, the etroleum ransporters ssociation of ambia ( ) has