KRA tightens cargo scrutiny to curb smuggling

A section of Berth 19 at the port of Mombasa. The Kenya Revenue Authority has announced plans to increase security checks to seal loopholes used by smugglers. PHOTO | FILE 

By GERALD ANDAE

In Summary

• Taxman says it will no longer treat tea consignments as low risk as smugglers increasingly favour them.

Clearance of export cargo at the port of Mombasa will take more than the average 26 days as state agencies move to forestall smuggling of wildlife and other contraband out of the country.

State agencies have introduced security checks after a consignment of ivory and tusks estimated at Sh576 million ($6 million) passed through the port to Vietnam where it was confiscated.

The consignment was discovered last week stashed among bags of tea leaves in two 20-foot containers, according to AFP news agency. This is barely two weeks after another container was impounded in Thailand.

After the Vietnam seizure, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) said it would henceforth subject Kenya’s Sh100 billion a year tea export to tough security checks in a move that could further hurt the country’s top foreign exchange earner.

The taxman’s Southern Region manager George Muia said tea will no longer be treated as low risk consignment because it had become an easy target for concealing contraband.

Mr Muia added that the agency would also secure the tea supply chain to make it impossible for any person to sneak in illegal items in the consignments.

He said the culprits had mastered the art of sneaking the contraband into tea containers without breaking custom seals, making it difficult for port officials to seize the consignments before they are shipped out of the country.

“We now need to secure every step of the tea supply chain in order to fill in the gaps that smugglers are exploiting to ferry illegal items,” Mr Muia told the Business Daily.

The East African Tea Traders Association (EATTA) welcomed the added scrutiny and asked the taxman to introduce a weighbridge at the port to help curb contraband disguised as tea consignments.

EATTA managing director Edward Mudibo said the weighbridge would be provide a quick way of identifying containers that have been tampered with.

“We want a weighbridge to be placed at the port to ascertain if there is any difference in weight when the container left the warehouse and when it is at the port,” said Mr Mudibo.

Tea scanning started early this month after the two successive seizures of ivory hauls. Initially, tea was exempted from scanning because of the huge volumes exported every day. Fifty containers of the commodity passes through the port.

Mr Muia, however, said KRA lacked the capacity to scan all consignments and that the only way to tame the vice is by securing the supply chain.
He said KRA had asked its Vietnam counterparts to thoroughly check the container for suspected items leading to the interception.

According to investigations, he said, the owner of the consignment was the same person whose cargo was intercepted with 3,100 kilogrammes of ivory early this month.

“The consignment was paid for by an individual who owned the previous consignment that was intercepted with the ivory and we have been monitoring him closely.”