Underworld of alcohol smuggling

THE Beitbridge border post can be a frustrating place for many a weekend traveller, because of long winding queues, confusion and system failure that can keep one there for days.

But in all that frustration, there are people who don’t mind spending days without a bath because they are there to make money. Among the buses, haulage trucks, cross-border operators “Omalayitsha” and locals known as “ama Gumaguma” there is something brewing.

There are allegations that a cartel involving rogue Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) officials, clearing agents, the border patrol police and drivers is hard at work, smuggling various goods.

Zimra officers wear t-shirts inscribed “I am not corrupt”, but suspected smugglers talk freely with them on a first name basis. It is alleged in most cases, a clearing agent works as a go-between for the customs official and the importer turned smuggler.

“You don’t just approach a customs official because everyone fears being caught,” said a clearing agent as this reporter asked for assistance to smuggle “goods”.

“It’s us who engage the customs guys because we work with them everyday. I know who can work with us or get us into trouble.”

For the operation to thrive, at every check point, from customs, border patrol, right up to the first roadblock outside the border, there should be a point person.

“We call them toll gates. If you know you are “hot” you leave money at every possible turn,” said a malayitsha on the Zimbabwean side, adding that he had been holed up on the South African side for more than 12 hours waiting for the right shift.

A malayitsha is a cross border transporter between two countries. At face value, his consignment is used furniture and groceries but in reality, he is hiding motor spare parts for which he should pay duty.

Spare parts attract a 10 percent import duty and an additional 15 percent of Value Added Tax (VAT). As far as Zimra Head Office is concerned, measures have been put in place making it almost impossible to smuggle goods through the border.

“Passenger vehicles and travellers baggage are subjected to physical examination while the bulk of commercial consignments are examined using non-intrusive searching methods (scanning),” said Florence Jamba, Zimra’s board secretary and director for legal and corporate services.

“This makes it difficult for any goods to be smuggled into Zimbabwe through the official entry points.”

But, allegedly, that’s not the reality on the ground. According to a customs official at the Beitbridge border post, who spoke on condition of anonymity, there are always ways to beat the system.

He said: “We no longer take money from people inside the border because some among us have been caught before on camera. The thing is, your person pays you before their goods even leave South Africa and they don’t pay directly to you.”

For a consignment of banned or restricted food stuffs and detergents a bribe of at least $10 is paid.

The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) says an estimated $1,8-2 billion dollars is lost annually because of smuggling.

“In most cases it starts with trade policies when importers try to go around them,” said Christopher Mugaga, the ZNCC chief executive officer. “Most people who are involved in serious smuggling are those that are well off, not the cross border traders. For example, products such as electrical goods should be certified before they enter the country or sold to the end users. So when you find them being sold without the certification, that’s a sign that they are smuggled.”

To deal with the scourge of smuggling, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development is contemplating introducing lie detector tests for Zimra staffers stationed at points of entry.

But Zimbabwe Revenue Authority Trade Union’s (Zimratu) president John Chirenda said this was “a violation of workers’ rights”.

A lawyer, Abigail Tshuma Mbuyisi, said a lie detector test could never be used as evidence in court because the system has loopholes.

“They (courts) can’t base their rulings on a lie detector test,” she said. “If one is just nervous and they answer something truthfully and that test detects it as a lie simply because maybe one’s heart skipped a beat or something, surely those results are already flawed.”

One of the most popular smuggled goods in this part of the country is alcohol, which has a 110 percent duty charge; but, according to clearing agents, Zimra is prejudiced as large consignments are declared falsely as salt. Salt does not attract duty, with importers paying only a small accounting fee.

“We use the wrong tariff code just in case there are roadblocks along the way where the driver has to show his declaration forms,” said a clearing agent. Many police officers are not well versed with import and export laws, so they are not much of a problem once the goods leave the border.”

Zimra has been more focused on monitoring illegal entry points where they have seized quantities of goods, but in the process there is a bigger racketeering route that goes unnoticed.

“Through border patrols, (Zimra) has made several seizures of alcoholic beverages imported through these illegal entry points,” Jamba said.

Appetite for import beers such as Castle Lite is huge. Imbibers prefer it to the locally produced one and retailers source it cheaper. As such even locals abuse the duty free waiver to bring in alcohol which they sell to retailers in Masvingo, Bulawayo and Gwanda.

A simple word of mouth search in Beitbridge town leads this reporter to Dulibadzimu township. With the help of a fixer, Reward Dube (not his real name), the Sunday News went to a make-shift warehouse. There, one finds beer and spirits of all kinds waiting for takers.

Johnny Walker Red Label — the cheapest from the Scottish range — is sold at $10. But Liqouramas in Bulawayo sell it for between $18-$20. Nightclubs set you back $50 per bottle.

Each person upon entry into Zimbabwe is allowed five litres of alcohol duty free. According to Dube, locals form small groups then bring in alcohol daily, the most popular being AB InBev brands (formerly Delta Beverages).

“Business is good. I am opening two more nightclubs, one in Bulawayo and the other in Gweru,” said a nightclub owner.

An hour spent at a nightclub showed that beer smuggled from South Africa is what retailers opt to sell. The excuse is, “it’s what our clients want.”

Delta’s marketing manager Patricia Murambinda believes this has more to do with pricing because even though the same brands are available locally, the imported ones wholesale cheaper and that means more profit margins for local outlets.

A case of Castle Lite with 20 beers bought from a smuggler costs $16 and a case from Delta costs $17,35.

Said Murambinda: “There are no formal exports by SABMiller into neighbouring countries.”

She added: “To some extent, smuggled beer has affected our business as consumers switch to these mainly due to lower pricing.”

Murambinda noted that alcohol tends to be more expensive in Zimbabwe because of two factors — the depreciation of regional currencies against the United States dollar, and the high cost of production.

She is also of the view that, had the dollar remained pegged at R10=$1, there would be stability making it tough for smugglers.

This story was funded by the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe Investigative Journalism Fund (VMCZ). IF you find yourself being juxtaposed to a comic character just know that you are no better than a figment of imagination, drawn in a graphic studio. It is common parenting knowledge that when your toddler watches too much cartoon network, he starts behaving as such. Super hero costumes are cried for, demanded and reluctantly worn off when its bath time. Unfortunately, some of our politicians grew up with that cartoon habit and forgot that animation is simply imagination, nothing more than a paraded crayon effect. This is the case of Zimbabwe’s fantastic four; Morgan Tsvangirai, Joice Mujuru, Temba Mliswa and “Others” who entertain us week in and out with their gyrate political acrobatics pensive of nothing more than a leisure motion picture. I deliberately call them the Fantastic Four because it’s only them and others who make up Zimbabwe’s opposition politics.

The rest are spectators in the terraces, watching the imagined action and assuming they are also part of it.

You know what, the wrong impression you get from watching 3D television is that you believe you participated in a movie, oh no!, it’s just a wow factor made to mesmerise you, which is how the movie industry is making money out of it. Zimbabwe’s opposition politics is now a wow! Nothing short of a scripted animation, imagined at the Harvest House and repeated appearance on the ANN7 channel.

In our country, we now have political participants instead of competitors leading parties; a whole lot of followers throng the rallies to be fooled. First, don’t fool yourself, Zanu-PF will win in 2018 and don’t be fooled, everyone in the opposition can be said to Zanu-PF. Check the logs of all activists and opposition leaders, they all at one point were Zanu-PF, Morgan Tsvangirayi was once Zanu-PF youth chairman. Recently they emerge participating in Zanu-PF’s debates; classical example, Temba Mliswa.

Enough with the article conceptual framework, on to serious business, the first of the fantastic four: This week we witnessed Tsvangirai touring the country for coalition consultation. I am dazed I should say. Because this coalition is surrounded by a lot of confusion, particularly engineered by the former Prime Minister in the Government of National Unity, who; either by strategy or stupidity is an ideological shape shifter. At one point he declared nonparticipation, then the next he selected specific parties to work with leaving out his former general, Tendai Biti, then now he is consulting the public and I wonder how? Is the consultation happening through a ballot system where every MDC member votes or it’s a rally where Mr Tsvangirayi addresses his people and gives them false hope that they will win next year under the auspices of coalition consultations?

The process of consultation is itself confused because after all the hullabaloo, MDC- T then decides to consult the people about an already confused idea. Lesson from Botswana: Botswana’s UDP lost the elections to Ian Khama’s BDP under the coalition leadership of Duma Boko and they will again lose in 2019.

These are our close neighbours with a rich history of the oldest opposition politics by African standards of 40 years and it has never won. Tsvangirai’s Bulawayo visit is nothing short of a test of the waters, to check whether his cronies would still back him after they left him for Mai Mujuru’s ZimPF. His provincial squire, Albert Mhlanga, shifted and joined ZimPF, but well, as he carried his MDC DNA there, he is looking forward to being ousted as an interim provincial co-ordinator. As of last week, I don’t know what his political destiny after that would be, maybe he might as well join VIVA or YARD. As I said, opposition politics is entertaining; it’s a cartoon network channel.

It’s been 18 years since MDCs existed and the best they have been close to winning was in 2008 when they lost dismally in the re-run. After that, life has not been all rosy only for Mr Tsvangirayi and his close generals with him divorcing his other wife with $1 and marrying again only for him to announce mid-last year that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer.

Beyond losing a lot of weight and with a visibly frail face (never mind his comfort with his serially natural unhandsome look) depicting a lot of pain he is going through, I wonder why they are harassing him with a national tour.

One of the prescriptions of colon cancer especially if you are in the stage Mr Tsvangirayi is in; is a lot of rest. Already he is struggling with accepting his health