In a rare show of scandalous dealings, the Tanzania Revenue
Authority (TRA) has sold back to the owners a seized consignment of dry hides
worth over $160m through a ‘well organized’ auction, The Guardian can reveal.
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| TRA Acting Commissioner General, Rished Bade |
While TRA was investigating SAK International, a company owned
by a group of Pakistani nationals for involvement in the illegal exportation of
the raw hides, the Pakistanis are said to have hoodwinked TRA to get back the
goods through another company name.
Amaal Investment, the company that bought the hides at the
auction on 24 January, this year is allegedly owned by one Amaal, daughter of
Asim Mahmood, one of the SAK International directors.
The three containers weighing 80 tons of dry hides were worth
some Sh160 million in November last year when they were detained at the port,
but were subsequently sold off at Sh50 million during the auction. However, The
Guardian has learnt that the buyers paid just half of that -- about Sh25
million.
The revenue body also contravened its own regulations by selling
the goods to a company that did not meet those requirements.
Through a media advertisement on 20 January, this year, TRA laid
five conditions for sale of the consignment. The first requirement reads, “ All
bidders must be licensed by the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development
for export of hides, skins and leather for the year 2013/2014.”
The Guardian confirmed at the ministry that the said company is
not licensed as indicated above; it only holds a business licence issued by the
Ilala Municipal Council. “This licence does not allow them to export anything
outside the country,” said our source who declined to be named.
The source further said that the company had applied for a licence
from the ministry just last December – which hadn’t been approved
at the time of auction.
A lot of controversy has since clouded the disposal of the
containers from the time they were seized in November last year. For s start,
the owners of the goods still remain unknown, raising questions among various
stakeholders.
But TRA acting Commissioner General Rished Bade said the
Authority had directed the police to carry investigations into the saga in
effort to reveal people behind apparent moves to evade tax.
This reporter reached him on phone because he had promised two
weeks ago to give more clarification on the matter after getting a report --
which he had apparently ordered his subordinates to compile.
But this top man at TRA sounded aggrieved by this reporter’s
efforts to follow-up the matter, and said he had not received the report yet.
“The report isn’t ready
yet … but as you know we have so many things to do … not just follow-ups on the
hides issues,” he opined. Somewhat blaming this reporter for sticking “on just
one issue every week.”
Mr Bide asked: “Do you have to write
about TRA every week … more so on this issue of dry hides ... or is this the
only thing you can do?”
It was at this point that this reporter pointed out that various
stakeholders were dissatisfied with the way the matter had been handled.
When asked about the new developments of the company that bought
the hides, he said he would direct the commissioner for customs and excise to
do the necessary follow-up.
What actually transpired
On November 11, 2013 the customs department seized three
containers of under-declared raw hides slated for export, which TRA then valued
at $150,000, but the traders had indicated they were worth just $84,000.
Several weeks after the seizure, customs and excise deputy
commissioner Patrick Kisaka told this reporter that the authority had failed to
identify the owners of the seized containers, and that the authority would
auction the goods.
Kisaka also said the raw hides worth Sh163.5m (about $1,000,000)
were then being held at the customs warehouse awaiting public auction any time
last month.
However, this paper learnt that SAK International Limited, the
company under investigation for evading tax in the exportation of the said
hides, had then offered the highest bid at auction.
Our investigations earlier revealed that SAK directors had flown
to Pakistan just days after the goods were detained by the customs officials
last November.
But on December 22, last year, they sent one of their young
brothers back to Tanzania to buy the goods.
During inspections before the auction, TRA official Manjale
Masare who supervised the exercise publicly announced that SAK International or
its affiliates would not be allowed to participate in the auction -- because
the company was under investigation.
“SAK International and its partners are automatically
disqualified in this process … the investigation is still underway,” he said,
adding that allowing them to do so would contravene ethics. But it soon emerged that after coming back into the country, the
SAK International official -- through an offer of Sh900 apiece – was declared
the highest bidder.
After pressure and complains from other stakeholders, TRA
changed course, saying it wouldn’t sell the goods to the highest bidder -- the
company under investigation in this case – which prompted several meetings
among stakeholders.
During a meeting on December 31, last year, representatives from
the Tanzania Tanners Association (TTA), TRA and the Ministry of Livestock and
Fisheries Development, agreed that the confiscated hides be donated to the
prisons department.
This decision was later overruled by acting Commissioner General
Rished Bade, who told The Guardian thus: “I stopped the process after realizing
that some people with ill intentions wanted to take the hides away from the
prisons department.”
Unanswered questions
Three months after the seizure, the people behind the
consignment still remain unknown -- neither is the clearing agent who handled
the consignment held responsible, nor has the shipping line, Maersk, which
leased the containers to the exporters, come out to throw some light over the
saga – even though its containers were used in the process.
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