The Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) plans to rope in use of modern technology such as drones as a means of curbing smuggling.
The revenue’s body’s Commissioner General John Bizwick disclosed this during a tour of porous border lines with the Budget and Finance and Industry Trade and Tourism Committees of Parliament to appreciate the extent of the problem.
Currently MRA has also adopted the use of tax stamps which it is upbeat will bring in the desired results.
Among other areas, the delegation visited Dikisoni Trading center, a well-known hub of smuggled goods as authorities’ battle to contain the situation due to the complexity of the matter because smugglers have informants who tip them when the officers come in to do their patrols.
The MRA boss cited the use drones as some of the reforms being undertaken, which it will deploy all over in the borders and will transmit information to be passed on to the ground staff.
He also spoke on the need to engage the people on the ground and the interconnectivity with neighbouring countries.
“Trucks are coming in from Mozambique with goods destined from Malawi and these goods they end up in Malawi, Mozambique and these are the goods that are smuggled through the borders like Salati and all these areas.
“So we think that once we are able to interconnect with Mozambique, it means we’ll have that advanced information. Actually, we had a meeting with our colleagues from Mozambique in which we explained what it happening.
“So they have promised that they will support us because what it happening is that the goods are wrongly being acquitted at Domwe and Dedza, and the other area which we are looking at is also the tax stamps and these are very important because with the stamps, we’ll be able to know which goods are been smuggled and which goods have come through the borders”
Biziwick could not however estimate how much the tax collecting body is losing through these smuggled goods but indicated that looking at how the shops are so full especially with alcoholic beverages, its just an eighth of what is coming through the borders
Gladys Ganda Chairperson of Budget and Finance Committee lamented that the country is losing a lot through smuggled products.
She noted this will have an implication on social services government provides to people such as medicines, good infrastructure and less agricultural investments due to few taxes being collected.
The parliamentarian urged Malawians on the need to focus on paying taxes in order to develop the nation.
She hailed the introduction of tax stamps which were approved by Parliament to check on smuggled goods as a good initiative.
Ganda pledged Parliament’s support to plans by MRA to bring drones to monitor smugglers adding that the Committee will ensure that there is enough allocation to support the initiative.
“As Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament, we’re going to make sure that they have enough money so that apart from the drones that they’ve been assisted by our strategic partners, as a country we should also be in a position to buy our own drones to add to the drones that we’re going to get from the partners to make sure that we get more taxes.
“If we fail to get more taxes it means that we’re not going to develop this country to the level that we want it to develop”
