Allocate Zimra enough funds to do its job better

their inevitability, and since no one likes to be even mildly suspected of being a mafia hitman or a South American drug smuggler, customs officers are bound to be less than popular.
A set of international best practices has arisen to cope with the huge movements of people travelling across frontiers to ensure that this movement is largely unimpeded but that taxes are paid and that smugglers of banned objects and substances are caught.
The simplest practice, and the one that has done so much to make border crossing less of a long nightmare, was the setting of a modest duty-free limit for new goods, allowing normal clothing and personal effects to pass tax free, and putting in place “green routes” for those who know they will not be taxed.
Travellers on these green routes do not need to see a customs officer.
Since some people cheat there are random searches. But most customs departments have developed a “nose” for tax cheats and a lot of work has been done in recent decades in creating “risk profiles” of those who might be smuggling in far worse things than a couple of new shirts.
Modern technologies allow luggage to be probed without being opened and all air travellers and many land travellers now accept without complaint that they will have to walk through detection equipment and have their hand baggage x-rayed.
But since this cuts out the need for almost all searches, we all acquiesce.
However this “random” searching can be overdone. The flood of complaints in recent months suggests that the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has been guilty of this, especially at the border posts.
At times the random searches include everyone. Long delays and unnecessary humiliation are the result.
At times the effort to stop a traveller possibly cheating on US$10 or US$20 in taxes has been out of all proportion to the potential loss to the State.
International best practice has been to be slightly tolerant over genuine travellers who have done some modest shopping while on holiday or a business trip, especially if the items are for personal use.
This is not to say that those trying to smuggle designer clothes, expensive jewellry or very fancy cameras should not be forced to pay taxes and severely penalised if they do not.
But putting in the full first team to find out if someone bought two shirts or three shirts is an overreaction. The odd random check, one in 50 or one in a 100 travellers, coupled with confiscation and significant fines for cheats, should provide an adequate deterrent without inconveniencing everyone.
The objective of Zimra’s heavy-handedness appears to be a desire to catch tax cheats, rather than because of security alerts, and there are long arguments over whether a few shirts in a suitcase are new or used.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti has seen his office inundated with such complaints. So he has taken action. Clothes and shoes no longer attract duty. So no one can be suspected of cheating on taxes since there are no taxes. That should eliminate many of the problems.
At the same time there has been consultation with Zimra, to see what is reasonable and what is not. That is largely a political decision, since a tax collector’s job is to collect taxes.
In a democracy the politicians need to listen carefully to experts and then make the final call.
So far we think Minister Biti has done this correctly. He wants commercial imports taxed and he wants the standard international practices applied on business and holiday travellers.
However, his well-merited criticism of the customs facilities at so many of our border posts are not really Zimra’s fault.
We agree that far better and roomier facilities are needed; we would like to see luggage at border posts go through the same checks as airport luggage.
None of this is impossible. It just costs some money. And who allocates that money?
Well, the Minister of Finance does, either directly through the budget or by varying the percentage of taxes collected Zimra is allowed to keep for capital projects.
All Zimbabwean travellers and tourists to Zimbabwe hope that Minister Biti will now reinforce his recent reforms of Zimra practice by allocating the cash Zimra needs to do its job better, and then ensuring that this capital work is completed as quickly as possible.