KRA nab trucks on transit with suspicious goods

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in conjunction with the multiagency team handling illicit trade and contrabands last evening intercepted five trucks transporting suspicion products in Isiolo County.

The trucks were seized during an ongoing sting multiagency verification operation in Isiolo county. On the first incident, one of the trucks was intercepted at a roadblock while transporting an Ethiopian delicacy known as shiro, coffee and one bag of indigenous pieces of wood. The other four trucks were impounded while transporting rice to Ethiopia.

The duties on the rice whose origin is believed to be India were not duly paid as required by the law. The five lorries are currently detained at Isiolo police station as investigations get underway.

In a separate crackdown, the multiagency team has seized 152 bottles of varying alcoholic products in Taita Taveta County. The products did not have excise stamps as required by the law. The team further bonded three premises for noncompliance with the excisable goods regulations and several operators arrested pending further investigations.

Meanwhile, an attendant of a wines and spirits outlet in Kakuma Town, Turkana County, has been arrested and 54 cans of FAXE beer which had no excise stamps seized. Five other attendants were also arrested by NACADA and Public Health officers for operating without requisite licenses in the town. During the same operation, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) destroyed water products that had expired Import Standardization Mark (ISM) stickers.

Although Kakuma Town is mostly inhabited by refugees, traders dealing in liquor products have been allowed to operate through issuance of liquor licences.

These incidences come hardly a few days after a major destruction exercise of condemned goods kicked off in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa last week. In Nairobi alone, an array of more than 560,000 condemned products valued at more than Ksh200 million were destroyed. Counterfeit liquor worth more than Ksh15 million was also destroyed in Kisumu.

The, multiagency team, which KRA is part of, remains committed in stepping up the fight against counterfeit products not only to protect legitimate dealers in the market but also to protect all Kenyans from substandard and harmful products. The operation further aims at sealing all loopholes through which government revenue has been slipping.