Govt drops charges against TRA officials
What you need to know:
Resident magistrate Huruma Saidi released Mr Masamaki and co-accused after the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), through state lawyer, Mr Timon Vitalis, told the court he has no interest to continue pursuing the charges.
Dar es Salaam. Kisutu resident magistrate court has set free former Tanzania Revenues Authority (TRA) customs director, Mr Tiagi Masamaki and four others.
Resident magistrate Huruma Saidi released Mr Masamaki and co-accused after the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), through state lawyer, Mr Timon Vitalis, told the court he has no interest to continue pursuing the charges.
Mr Vitalis used Section 91 (1) of Criminal Procedure Act (CPA) to ask the court to drop the charges against the four.
Others who were set free are TRA customs manager, Mr Habib Mponezya, 45, TRA customs monitoring manager, Bulton Mponezya, TRA supervisor of Customs and Excise Duty at Azam ICD, Ms Eliachi Mrema and Azam ICD manager Mr Ashrafu Khan.
However, 110 fresh charges were read against other accused in the cases.
They are Azam ICD operation and security officer Hamis Omary, 48, Raymond Adolf Louis, 39 and Haroun Mpande, 28, both from TRA Information Communication Technology department.
They are all facing charges of causing loss to the government after they allegedly allowed 329 containers to leave the Dar es Salaam Port before the necessary tariffs were paid.
They are allegedly to have occasion the government a loss of Sh12.7 billion in unpaid taxes.
The accused are alleged to have committed the offence between June 1 and November 17, last year.
