Technology adoption curbs smuggling: Zimra

THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) says huge progress has been made curbing smuggling through the country’s borders and undesignated entry points using various kinds of technology including drones and fast-go scanners.

The tax watchdog introduced drones early this year and launched the pilot project at the Beitbridge Border Post, the busiest inland port of entry in Southern Africa.

Speaking recently in Victoria Falls on the sidelines of the World Customs Organisation East and Southern Africa (WCO ESA) strategy meeting, Commissioner for Customs and Excise, Mr Batsirayi Denford Chadzingwa said a modern customs authority is measured by its automation.

WCO ESA is a global body that focuses on expertise in customs, trade facilitation, revenue mobilisation, protection of society and development of human capital for the customs authorities and has 24 members in East and Southern Africa.

He said Zimra is implementing a number of technologies to improve border surveillance and boost revenue collection.

“As the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, we are on a digitisation agenda and we are very mindful that any administration in the 21st century must be automated,” he said.

“We have the drone technology and we are the first customs administration in Africa to be running drone technology to manage border posts.”

Mr Chadzingwa said there are over 30 known porous entry points along the country’s borders and that drones were helping with identification and speedy reaction.

“As part of our trade facilitation agenda we have also introduced fast scanners at our border posts and Beitbridge has two fast scanners, which are capable of scanning about 100 trucks in an hour,” he said.

Beitbridge Border Post

“We are also in the process of replacing aged scanning machines and as we go into 2025, we have plans to procure additional new scanning machines to assist us in trade facilitation.”

Zimra is also upgrading its platforms, which underpins the custom automation processes.

“We are there in terms of managing and finalising the project, which is going to come up with a lot of enhancement and speed of delivery and we are going to have an enhanced module on this management, which is core in terms of trade facilitation, as well as ease of management of clients’ accounts and follow up,” said Mr Chadzingwa.

He said busy border posts like Plumtree, and Forbes are being capacitated as Zimra works on its futuristic strategy.

This will see Zimra also adopting a single window system, which promotes integrity and integration between importing and exporting countries.

THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) has announced that Tax clearance certificates will be accessible only through the new tax and revenue management systems (TaRMS) through the self-service portal.
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)

“Looking at our strategy for 2025, we are trying to make sure that attention is given to a lot of customs manual processes that we must automate,” said the official.

“Automation removes a lot of human intervention, corruption and gives ease in terms of speed of operations. A customs administration in the 21st century is known by its level of automation.

“The single window is another automation drive, after realisation that we do have a lot of Government agencies who are interested in trade facilitation issues, so a fragmented approach will delay the way we want to do trade facilitation.

“So, we came up with a single window model for all players to find an automated window to do business.”

According to Zimra, permits will be done online meaning removal of the physical presence of an agent at a border post.

“This has worked well for us, Port Health have come on board and we almost done with their modules and now we are working with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water Fisheries and Rural Development and Industry and Commerce because of import and export licences which must be processed at the window,” said Mr Chadzingwa.

He said Zimra and their Zambian counterparts had implemented data interchange, which helps eliminate middlemen as the export bill of entry becomes the import bill of entry using the same declaration. By so doing, corruption and smuggling is eliminated.

Zimra’s drones include multi-rotor drones, which use infra-red and can scan an area of between 15km. Maximising revenue collection promotes transparency and accountability, reduce the loss of critical revenue, which the Treasury needs for financing development projects.

The developments are in line with global best practices. Already, automation of services and separation of traffic the drones, ECTS and fast scanners project at the transformed Beitbridge Border Post has become a game-changer by facilitating enhanced efficiency systems at the country’s busiest port of entry. — @ncubeleon

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