Police chiefs, Tanzania Revenue Authority official in trouble over fake tax stamps

Mwanza/Shinyanga. President John Magufuli on Saturday suspended Shinyanga Regional Police Commander (RPC) Richard Abwao and Shinyanga Regional Crimes Officer (RCO) John Rwamlema to pave the way for investigations into alleged misconduct and economic sabotage claims.

The two are suspected of colluding with Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) regional manager for Shinyanga Jumbe Samson in aiding a private company to evade tax. The President also directed the TRA Commissioner General Edwin Mhede to suspend Mr Jumbe.

The two regional police bosses are also accused of disrespecting the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner, Ms Zainab Telack by not implementing her directives.

TRA acting director for taxpayer services and education Richard Kayombo confirmed yesterday that the President’s directive was immediately implemented.

“That was implemented immediately,” he said, adding that he was not ready to get into the details of the issue.

In a statement released by the Tanzania Police Force spokesperson, Mr David Misime, the three are accused of aiding the management of a spirits maker in Shinyanga, Canon, to evade tax.

Saturday’s suspension followed a number of cases in which the company was alleged to have evaded payment of tax.

On October 30, 2019, a lorry carrying 1,490 cartons of liquor,was seized by a team of security personnel from the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner’s Office.

During that time, the company was ordered to pay Sh50 million in fines to TRA for fixing “outdated” excise duty stamps on the hard drinks.

TRA has successfully rolled out two phases of its Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS) project in a bid to boost transparency in the collection of excise duty, Value Added Tax (Vat) and corporate tax from manufacturers.

The first phase of the ETS rollout programme was conducted on January 15, 2019 whereby stamps were installed on 19 companies that produce alcohol, wines and spirits.

The second phase, which saw ETS being stamped on soft and carbonated drinks plus bottled water, was rolled out on August 1, 2019.

The ETS system enables the government to use modern technology to obtain production data on a timely basis (real time) from manufacturers.

It also aids the government in curbing revenue leakages and determine in advance the amount of tax to be paid as excise duty, value-added tax and income tax.

A Canon employee told The Citizen yesterday that after being fined, the company was able to pay the fine between November 3 and 4, 2019.

But that was not the end of it because on Friday last week, a manager at Canon and the company’s lawyer received summons from TRA where they were required to pay Sh50 million more in fines.

This had to be so after TRA realised that there had been a correlation between the excise duty stamps on Canon’s liquor and those on yet another liquor manufacturers.

“They signed the documents and agreed to pay the fine tomorrow (today) Monday,” said the employee.

Just as they thought the problem was over, TRA came up with yet another claim when it reported to have seized 600,000 of fake tax stamps that allegedly belonged to Canon. The company was required to pay Sh2 billion in fines for the seized tax stamps.

At that point, Canon’s lawyer asked to be given more time so he could cross check the authenticity of the seized stamps with TRA headquarters. “That is where the problem started,” said the employee.

Regional Authorities wanted the two officials to be jailed until at such a point when they will have signed documents that would make the company liable for the Sh2 billion fine.

After discussions however, police and TRA officials decided not to put the suspects under custody.

Efforts to get Ms Telack’s views on the issue proved futile yesterday as calls to her mobile number went unanswered.

But speaking to journalists on November 9, 2019, Ms Telack warned members of the business community against the tendency to collude with some police officers to evade tax lest they face legal action.