By Frank Kamuntu
The customs enforcement team in Jinja has impounded six vehicles for conveying uncustomed rice.
Philip Ofubo, a customs officer attached to the Jinja office identified the vehicles as a Toyota Wish UBK101R, a Taxi UAW376M, a Toyota Nadia UAX491M, a Toyota Corona UAK643T, a FUSO truck UBN075J, and a cement truck UBK422R.
Ofubo said the six vehicles were carrying 10 tons of smuggled rice in total. “During the focused operation, we got 407 bags of rice concealed in various ways. The brands are Sana, Muhamood, Baraf, and Hilal,” he said.
He explained that they relied on intelligence from informants about rice being smuggled into the country.
“One of the vehicles, a cement truck, had bags purported to be carrying oranges, but our informant was spot on, and upon opening, we recovered 26 bags of rice, while a FUSO truck had 260 bags of re-bagged rice from Pakistan,” Ofubo remarked.
The officer added that the FUSO truck carrying 520 bags of rice was nabbed on Thursday night as it headed to Kampala in an intelligence-led operation, while the other five vehicles were intercepted last weekend.
“260 bags of local rice were placed on top, while 260 bags of Pakistani rice were concealed under, and all the rice is contained in locally branded bags of Kaka rice,” said Ofubo.
This interception comes at a time when there have been scuffles between URA and rice traders, with the authority saying some traders are importing mixed rice sourced from different countries and declaring it as sourced from within the East African region to bypass taxes.
According to the East African Community Common External Tariff (EAC-CET), importation of rice outside the E.A.C. is subject to import duty at a rate of 75%, while rice sourced from within the EAC attracts 0% import duty.
In October of this year, URA acquired a machine to conduct tests and ascertain the origin of imported rice. The machine was provided by the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO).
