ZRA ON RIGHT TRACK

WE applaud the pragmatic strategy that the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has adopted to fight and stem the rampant smuggling going on in the country.

The strategy, announced by ZRA Commissioner-General Kingsley Chanda in Lusaka yesterday entails the organisation reporting its officers to the law enforcement organs.

This must be a first for a company to take such an initiative. The practice has been to send such erring officers on administrative leave pending investigations.

At times, it mostly leads to dismissal from employment. Not anymore.

What is commendable is that the ZRA chief has publicly admitted that some of his officers had been involved in smuggling cases.

“We are also aware, and let me be honest here, that these smuggling activities, in fact most of them, are facilitated by our officers,” said Mr Chanda.

There is no doubt that many smuggling syndicates are run by serving officers in the ZRA. This makes it easy for them to beat the system.

Mr Chanda said ZRA would report any of its officersinvolved in illegalities such as smuggling to the Drug Enforcement Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission and the Zambia Police Service.

It is common knowledge that smuggling robs the nation of valuable income that Treasury needs to finance the country’s development programmes.

This is more so in financing health and education, not forgetting the cash-transfer programme that helps the most vulnerable in the country.

It is sad that ZRA officers, who ought to be in the forefront in fighting smuggling are actually the ringleaders, as Mr Chanda said.

They are the ones who must be leading proponents against smugglers because they know the harm the scourge does to the country’s economy.

The ZRA’s new tough approach is matched with action as confirmed by Mr Chanda.

“We recently reported three of our own officers to ACC and they have since been arrested, so this will continue. I want to warn our own officers that this will not be tolerated going forward,” he told reporters in Lusaka yesterday.

This is how it should be. Mere rhetoric will not do. Erring employees must realise from the onset that they will not be spared if they do not control their greed and connive with criminals to rob the government.

They are the ones tarnishing the image of the ZRA and its hardworking staff.

But even as it implements its zero-tolerance towards smuggling among its staff, we are glad that the ZRA will equally be tough against smugglers – particularly businesses and transporters.

“They know that we are desperate to get revenues, so they take their chances to smuggle, because they know when they are caught they will only be fined and they will get away with it.

“We will stop charging and giving penalties and instead continue with seizing and forfeiting. That way we feel that when smugglers lose their goods and transporters lose their trucks, they will become more serious in dealing with ZRA,” Mr Chanda said.

Smugglers must be left in no doubt that when they are caught, as with their ZRA cohorts, they could end up serving time in a correctional facility to help them reflect on their misdeeds.