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Curb revenue loss, pm tells ports authorities
2006-05-17 09:38:28
By Ludger Kasumuni
Prime Minister Edward Lowassa has directed the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) to plug loopholes through which revenue is lost.
Addressing TRA and TPA senior staff and representatives of companies contracted to collect revenue at the ports, Lowassa said yesterday that he had visited the Dar es Salaam Port to familiarise himself with its daily activities and the measures being taken to curb revenue loss.
He said that he had received complaints about how some traders collude with TRA and TPA officials to evade paying taxes.
He, however, appreciated the work being done by TRA, TPA to control loss of revenue and the measures being taken to improve tax collection by Customs.
Lowassa toured several sections of the port including oil jet, flow meter centre, international container terminal and a company crosschecking imported goods through the port, Tiscan.
Meanwhile, angry dockworkers yesterday blocked the Prime Minister’s motorcade to force him to listen to their complaints against the TPA management.
When the Prime Minister’s motorcade stopped after the tour at the dockyard area, the aggrieved dockworkers, most of them are casual labourers, complained that there is chronic discrimination in employment.
They said that, while most of them had been working for over 10 years, they had not been given permanent jobs. Instead jobs are dished out to the senior officers’ relatives.
Acting TPA Director General, Peter Mtandu told the Prime Minister that it was not true that there was discrimination in employment.
Mtandu said the work done by the dockworkers is seasonal and that is why they could not be given permanent jobs.
However, when he said that, the dockworkers heckled him, saying he was a liar.
The Prime Minister said that he would ask Minister for Infrastructure Basil Mramba to look into their problem.
Besides Mramba, the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Yusuf Makamba, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Juma Akukweti and TRA Commissioner General, Harry Kitilya accompanied the Prime Minister.
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