URA Finds Solution To Imported Goods Abandoned By Fraudulent Brokers

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has reached a lasting solution to the problem of goods imported and cleared on behalf of their actual owners by fraudulent brokers.

This was after URA Commissioner General John Rujoki Musinguzi met key stakeholders along the import value chain.

Recently, a concern was raised on social media alleging that some goods had taken up to 117 days in URA custody.

“Tracing in our system, we could not trace any goods for this young man, and even tracing him was difficult. But as we went down and interrogated this matter further and even contacted a number of business associations, we found out that there is a practice that has been happening where people masquerade as consolidators and import goods that belong to their importers, which they don’t declare to us as goods that have been consolidated, and they are the same people when they are caught, they abandon those goods,” URA CG Musinguzi explained.

According to the URA, fraudulent people operating as brokers, importing goods and clearing them from the URA system on behalf of the goods’ actual owners, either miss-declare or under declare.

The URA says that when caught, they abandon the goods at the cost of their true owners.

“There are people who have been importing goods under their names and under their TINS when actually they are not the actual owners of those goods, and that group of fraudulent people has been the same group that is so daring. under-declare or misdeclare the imported goods, and when they are caught, because they are not stakeholders and the goods don’t belong to them, they abandon the goods and let the importers be on their own. They start confusing them. URA has held your goods. The system is not on, and so on and so forth, and when they run out of excuses, then they start switching off their lines and changing,” Musinguzi says.

In the meeting, the URA and their visitors agreed that the gaps in cargo consolidation should be closed.

“Our SOPs are that if goods don’t have any queries, they are cleared out of our system within a day. maximum of two days. So, for your caro to be with us for 100 days, that is a clear case of fraud, Musinguzi added.

He said that the new measure will isolate brokers.

“I appeal to any importers who may have imported goods and have not been cleared in the last month to say there is a problem. The person who imported the goods on your behalf into our system has been the problem. Come to our office and redeem those goods. To the brokers: take advantage of the two-day window and cooperate with us so that we can clear goods and give them to the true owners. And if that does not happen, then the law will take its course,” he said.