{{The Rwanda National Police (RNP) Revenue Protection Department recovers at least Rwf52 million monthly, approximately Rwf13 million weekly, through intercepted smuggled goods and undervalued products, supporting the government tax body to hit its revenue collection targets, the Commanding Officer said.}}
Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Kalinda, in an interview said the money includes recovered taxes that are evaded through smuggling, fraud and undervalued goods.
The Revenue Protection Department (RPD) is the RNP unit attached to Rwanda Revenue Authority to help the tax body in preventing, detecting and investigating cases related to combating tax evasion and smuggling.
“We intensified the operations and identified illegal borders used by smugglers which help us to seize such goods sneaked into the country illegal and to recover the evaded taxes,” said CSP Kalinda.
“When you look at the nature of our borders, they are open and this facilitates cross-border smuggling, but we work hand-in-hand with other institutions like RRA and the general public to combat these illegal acts,” he added.
Though cases of smuggling are on the tremendous decreased, he said, cases of fraud are still rampant partly facilitated by technology.
“Previously, we used to intercept vehicles with smuggled good, but this is changing face as people involved in this fraudulent business now forge receipts and undervalue their commodities so as to pay less taxes,” he observed.
To address this, he noted, they sometimes visit countries where goods are purchased to get the real prices of some commodities, which helps to identify undervalued merchandise.
CSP Kalinda outline liquors, nido, a powdered milk, a local attire known as ibitenge, soaps, salt and salsa, a tomato paste as some of the common smuggled products.
He also downplayed claims by some traders that their goods a confiscated for days, which hurts their businesses.
“Some of these traders actually can’t produce receipts when asked while others undervalue their goods to the extent that even a blind person can notice it.
These are some of the issues that make the process long otherwise we wouldn’t want to have all these vehicles are goods…in our warehouses.”
He urged traders to always go through legal channels to avoid risks of paying heavy fines, which are way higher than what they pay in customs, and sometimes losing their merchandise.
He also warned traders against tendencies of bribery and refusal to use the Electronic Billing Machines.
The e-billing machines help in automatically calculating value added tax (VAT) owed by businesses to RRA, as well as controlling sales and stock by processing and storing invoices.
Richard Tusabe, Commissioner General of RRA also warned the business community against fraudulent business like corruption and refusal to install or use the e-billing machine.
“If you want inclusive growth, you must have inclusive participation. It is not our intention to penalize tax evaders but we will hold back to ensure that this illegal business, which has an impact on the economy and discourages legal imports, is combated,” Dusabe told the business community in Kimihurura yesterday.
Between 2007 and 2013, the Revenue Protection Department intercepted goods smuggled into the country worth over Rwf4 billion, with goods worth Rwf1.2 billion seized in 2012 alone.
Experts say smuggling undermines the local industry, discourages legal imports and reduces the volume of revenues collected from duties and levies by the state and is likely to bring into market, substandard products, some of them which might have negative ill-effects on people’s health.
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