RBZ to plug tourism leakages

Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will soon digitalise its accounting system for the safari hunting players to address administration challenges and revenue leakages which the current system is failing to curb.The new system known as the Tourism Receipts Accounting System Form No 2 (Form TRAS2) will replace the Tourism Return Form No 2 (Form TR2) that came into force in 2003 through a statutory instrument as a manual system for reporting of commercial hunts and accounting for earnings from foreign tourism in wildlife hunting.

A trial run of the new system is set to commence in July and is expected to become fully operational by January 2 next year.

A steering committee chaired by the central bank has been set up to oversee the implementation of Form TRAS2.

The committee also includes Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, Bankers Association of Zimbabwe, Professional Hunters and Guides Association of Zimbabwe and Taxidermists.

Speaking at a consultative meeting in Gweru on Tuesday, RBZ senior executive export facilitation and administration, Tayengwa Chitauro, said the current receipting system was fraught with many loopholes which has seen many players in the safari hunting business failing to declare proceeds from hunting activities at conservancies.

“The administration of Form TR2 has been faced with many challenges chief among them is that there is a lag between time of transaction and data availability to national parks and RBZ which has also resulted in other players failing to avail receipts,” said Chitauro.

“The manual process has also resulted in operational bottlenecks and is not inclusive of all industry players in the consumptive tourism sub sector.

“The manual system has also resulted in late submission of forms by safari operators due to geographical barriers as operators are far from towns where they obtain the forms from banks.”

Chitauro said the proposed system would overcome such challenges by decentralising the submissions of receipts to the central bank through the creation of a website where operators will submit their receipts online and the data will be captured instantly by the central bank.

Each safari operator will have an account on the website on which to log on and submit receipts.

Safari hunting contributes between $40 million to $60 million annually to the fiscus.