Tanga Region keen on curbing illegal trade

TANGA Regional Commissioner, Martin Shigela, has vowed to lead an intensive anti-smugglers campaign along the Tanga coastal areas to end illegal importation of goods using ‘panya routes’.

He said he will take the measure of leading the operation in collaboration with the security organs and bring the culprits to face the law.

The regional commissioner gave the statement yesterday after being informed by the Tanga region TRA Manager, Mr Swalehe Biyarugaba, that one of the challenges they face in collecting government revenue was the presence of a big number of illegal ports along the coastal strip, which allow illegal goods to flow in without paying revenue.

According to Mr Swalehe, there are about 31 illegal ports along the Tanga coastal strip which are used by the smugglers to shunt illegal goods to the Tanzanian market, something which, apart from affecting the government in terms of revenue collection, also frustrates domestically produced goods in the internal market.

“You know the importers using illegal routes don’t pay revenue, therefore even the price of the goods will be lower than those produced here in Tanzania, where owners pay tax. This will of course affect home industries,” he said.

He further stated that the region TRA office has failed to control the situation because it has only one patrol vehicle, thus unable to patrol all the 31 areas pointed to have illegal ports.

He however said that apart from the challenges, in the last fiscal year, TRA managed to impound smuggled goods worth more than 2bn/- from which the government was supposed to collect revenue amounting to.351.7m/- Responding to the issue, the regional commissioner said that he will start to visit all villages that are used as illegal ports by smugglers, so that he could direct village leaders to mobilise and sensitise villagers to take part in combating such illegal trade along the Tanga coastal strip.

He however said that one of his strategic plan to fight the vice was to task village leaders to be key persons in revealing and combating the trend, because there are allegations that some leaders were collaborating with smugglers.

“I will conduct meetings in all villages and talk to the leaders about the matter...but my stand is that... if smugglers succeed to ferry their goods through any village, the village leaders in that particular area will be sacked at once,” he said.

He said that the question of collecting government revenue was a priority, because the government is determined to collect more funds so that it could fulfill its plan of providing good social services to wananchi, including free education, road infrastructure and health issues.

In this fiscal year, Tanga region has a projection of collecting about 59.298bn/