By CHILA NAMAIKO –
THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has dismissed 25 officers since February last year for corruption Commissioner General Kingsley Chanda has revealed, as he warned he would clean up the institution of any trace of bad eggs within the institution.
ZRA Commissioner-General Kingley Chanda told the Parliamentary committee on Estimates yesterday that, on average, the authority was firing four workers every month for corruption-related offences.
September last year saw the biggest purge in a month with 10 dismissed.
Mr Chanda told a committee chaired by Patriotic Front (PF) Mbala Member of Parliament (MP) Mwalimu Simfukwe that he would not tolerate corruption, and any employee found wanting would face the law.
“For your own information, ZRA fires an average of four officers every month due to corruption, and I will not tolerate corruption in any form,” Mr Chanda.
He told the committee that although corruption had become a growing trend at ZRA, he would not relent in his quest to eradicate the vice.
Mr Chanda the institution had set up an internal affairs unit responsible for facilitating the prevention of corruption and related malpractices within the institution.
The committee heard also that a scanner was being installed at Nakonde border post to help deal with cases of unscrupulous truck drivers that carried goods across without paying the due taxes after driving through dubious routes to avoid the border.
He said the border had, for many years been porous, leading to his officers at Kapiri Mposhi setting up a check-point carrying out secondary inspections on goods being trucked into Zambia and penalising those found lacking the appropriate documentation.
Mr Chanda said the process of installing a scanner at Nakonde border had advanced, and what had delayed was completion of work to upgrade the access road.
On the suspension of custom duty on aquaculture equipment for a period of three years, he said the measure was aimed at enhancing food security in the country and diversification of economic activity by boosting fish production.
The committee hailed Mr Chanda for his efforts to introduce more effective measures of tax collection to help Government implement various programmes of development.