By Tione Andsen

Dowa, June 25, Mana: Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has admitted that smuggling of goods remains a key challenge in the drive to increase revenue collection in the country.

Head of Corporate Affairs at MRA, Steve Kapoloma made the admission Monday during his presentation as an implementation Agencies for Southern Africa Trade and Connectivity Project (SATCP) during a two-day Media Orientation and Tour at Vintage Hotel in Mponela, Dowa.

He said most imported goods are coming into the country by using uncharted routes as there are many porous routes for use.  

“We are facing a lot of challenges in dealing with the situation especially this time of the years where there are no rains and many small parts are passable and these are proofing to be conducive areas for smuggling,” Kapoloma explained.  

He added MRA has anti-smuggling teams called FAST which patrols the uncharted routes where smuggling is prone.

Kapololma disclosed that the work was very tough on the ground and believe the challenges would be lessened with the coming of Drones that would be procured by SATCP with funding from World Bank which supporting Nacala Corridor.

“We kick started the process of procuring the Drones but we faced some challenges somehow and it was halted. Now, the World Banks has come full throttle at this stage and we hopefully that by the next three months, we should have them in operational,” he narrated.

The Head of Corporate Affairs said MRA was keen to making sure that the staff members were capacitate with proper knowledge to enable them fly the Drones  

Kapoloma revealed that 21 MRA staff members are now able to fly the drones after being certified by Civil Aviation Department.     

“We want to deal with the issue of smuggling in a smarter way. There is huge impact on smuggling because is being played in blank side. The magnitude of the malpractice will be difficult to assess. Through our patrols we have noticed that we have lost or recover about K 3 billion and this could just be tip of the ice bag,” he pointed out.

Kapoloma said the most important thing was that MRA was doing everything possible to deal with issues of smuggling by involving communities because the Authority could not be everywhere.

“We need to make sure that wherever smuggling is taking place where whistle blowers should inform us. We are partnering with chiefs and local leaders to support MRA initiatives to curb smuggling and we believe the coming in of Drones will deal with it completely,” he noted.     

National Public Relation Officer (PRO) for Department of Immigration and Citizen Services, Wellington Chiponde said there are 36 border posts with neighbouring countries.

He said out of the 36 border posts only four are automated namely Kamuzu and Chileka international Airports, Mwanza and Mchinji borders.

“We are intended to automate 16 border posts in the country so that we can do away with manual recording of data. We largely depend on the entry and exit cards to update our data base manually,” Chiponde added.

He said the automated border would help us to check the issue of illegal immigrants and human trafficking. 

MRA and Immigration are part of the Implementation Agencies for SATCP which is being funded by World Bank to the tune of K150 million.