Clearing and forwarding agents at Victoria Falls and Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) port office in Livingstone have continued with their strike action and are calling for the resignation of ZRA assistant Commissioner, Moses Mfune.
A check by ZANIS at the port office found clearing agents outside the offices.
The clearing agents are accusing the assistant commissioner of massively increasing the evaluation charge.
An agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that they will not go back to work until Mr Mufune resigns from his position.
He said the assistant commissioner is accusing the agents of fraud by having two invoices.
The agent wondered why ZRA in Nakonde border was charging less than in Livingstone when the goods being cleared were the same.
“How can a Toyota corolla in Nakonde be charged at K8 million while here it is K12 million? That’s not fair on the part of our clients, “he said.”
And at the Victoria Falls border post, clearing agents were found not working with imports not entering the country.
When contacted for a comment, Mr Mfune said Government had been losing a lot of revenue through fraudulent activities of the clearing agents, saying about K 16 billion had been lost from January 2012 to date.
Mr Mfune said it was very difficult to know the bases of the protest and that the clearing agents had been forging their entries and that the ZRA system had proved the forgery.
“Government is losing K16,574,012,688.56 through the devaluing of the goods that they are clearing at the ZRA port office,” he said.
ZANIS
Mfume satan iwe Zambia is not yours alone,all of us are Zambian there fore we should share the cake fairly.even agents wants to eat.when correcting taxes you use statistics so whatever you correct is enough,money will never be enough for your information.every Zambian should have a decent meal,agents work for their money.*****
Everyone know that there is alot of fraud and forgery at the boarders, so why not sort out your system ba zra
Ask mfune how much he paid for the vehicle he is driving.
How much he paid is secondary. The govt needs the revenue and Mfune is doing a good job. What type of people are you who praise grand corruption. Soak them Mfune! Most of the vehicles on Zambian roads are undervalued and personally, I believe we need more Mfunes to collect what due due to govt.
What we need is transparency. Any revenue authority you go to that is worth it’s salt has all the parameters clearly stated. In Zambia, these parameters are not easily available( if they exist on paper) to the public so that people are ready to pay. As it stands we are at the mercy of the mood of the customs people. Why the secrecy? Publish these standards!!!! Or else the clearing people will continue.
Ba LT, the picture you hav used is for the terminal building in Chirundu and not Livingstone.
that is what happens when you have teachers, and other curious professionals working as ZRA officers.
So tell us, which profession is specific to train ZRA officers. Damn head!
You tell me. We had exams held but we still have the same people who looked at the car, admired the colour and deemed it expensive.
They don’t look at the colour, sir. They inspect vehicles and also take into consideration the model (year of manufacture). So they were only doing their job and not admiring your reconditioned car. secondly, they also know the prices of second hand vehicles on the internet and know that importers delete original figures, scan the documents and put their ‘convenient’ amount in collaboration with clearing agents. So sir, was your vehicle really expensive or your agent ‘cooked the numbers’. you condemn others, yet you car importers are the biggest thieves, depriving GRZ revenue.
The tax especially on vehicles is too too high in this country. How do u expect Zambians to be buying good cars when they will also pay a similar amount in tax. I recall buying my car for a $1,000 yet the tax I was charged was $2,500. This is just theft by ZRA. If they want tax, let them tax the mines (windfall tax), airtel, MTN, and the shoprites that continue changing names every 5 years. Leave Zambians to enjoy a bit and not let us continue to wallow in poverty. We want to prosper too
I agree with you on this one… i think they should look to change the way the tax some goods ie cars. to be more fair i mean everyone is scared to even buy a brand new car because you will pay double so they source cheap ones but now there system is also working against that.
The way it should be is that i provide you the particulars of my vehicles with valid invoice and at what cost and you do the valuating from there not playing guessing games because you assume i have under valued my goods then prove it case by case.
What we need is transparency. Any revenue authority you go to that is worth it’s salt has all the parameters clearly stated. In Zambia, these parameters are not easily available( if they exist on paper) to the public so that people are ready to pay. As it stands we are at the mercy of the mood of the customs people. Why the secrecy? Publish these standards!!!! Or else the clearing people will continue.
So if i may ask a pertinent question here, is this Mr Mfune being corrupt or is he trying to do the right thing?
If agents doctor their documents to pay less tax, then should we be blaming this ZRA official?
The gvt shud engange the law enforcement agence over the matter
People are suffering but mr mfune is enjoying
We have surffered enough in mmd gvt just arest mr mfune coz in pf gvt we are not torareting
Such behaviour.
hello ,
dear
i live in Tanzania deal with clearing agant so i need co orpation with u
am asking for a job from tunduma tanzania