Seal handed to driver A driver of a Zimbabwean truck carrying a consignment of shoes from South Africa is being questioned by police following the disappearance of the load between Beit Bridge and Harare.
The shoes, worth about R60 000, were inspected by customs at the border post in accordance with the new crackdown on smuggling. The customs officials broke the seal on the container and when they had finished their inspection, handed the seal to the driver instead of resealing the container.
On arrival in Harare the container was found to be empty and the driver denied having anything to do with the disappearance. Says an executive of the transport company involved: The customs were in fact putting temptation in the way of the driver by handing him the seal. We urged all transporters to insist on containers being resealed. Smuggled containers mount up Zimbabwe's customs department says it is now holding 300 unclaimed containers which have been confiscated in a crackdown on smuggling.
Director Ranga Munyaradzi says owners of the containers are scared to come forward because they fear being prosecuted. They think they will collect their goods when we suspend the operation but what they don't know is that the exercise is here to stay. The director has claimed that all companies are involved in smuggling. This has enraged long established companies, one of which commented sarcastically this week: Perhaps the director does not have a telephone directory, because our address is right there and we, among all the other reputable companies, are presumably included in those which have had their containers confiscated. All he has to do is come to our offices.
The real situation of course is that there is so much corruption going on that fictitious companies are smuggling goods and the department does not have a clue which they are.
Established companies are quite clearly not part of the smuggling. NRZ wants to attract private operators The Build-Operate-Transfer tactic is catching on with the National Railways of Zimbabwe. The rail corporation says it is reorganising itself on this basis, to attract private investment.
Says chairman Sam Geza: Infra-structure and equipment will be concessioned to the private sector while the parastatal will in future be restricted to being an operator among other operators.
