Sesheke — Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) Katimamulilo border post in Sesheke collected revenue of K2.1 billion in January 2012 alone beating a target of K1.17 billion for the same month, station manager Queenvar Musenge has said.

And Finance and National Planning deputy minister Alfreda Kansembe said the construction of facilities at the new Katimamulilo border in Sesheke would be completed in the next four months.

Ms Munsenge also said ZRA Katimamulilo border post collected the revenue of K31.2 billion in 2011 against a target of K24.4 billion for the same year.

In 2010, Ms Musenge said the border post collected K18.2 billion revenue compared with a target of K12.1 billion for the same year.

Ms Musenge was speaking in Sesheke on Wednesday afternoon after Ms Kansembe and her delegation from the Ministry of Finance toured facilities at the new Katimamulilo border post.

"Our revenue collection target for the year 2012 is K33billion and we are hopeful that the target will be exceeded by the end of this year," Ms Musenge said.

Meanwhile, Ms Kansembe said the construction of facilities at the new Katimamulilo border in Sesheke would be completed in the next four months.

Ms Kasembe said she was assured by the contractor, Atlas Mulube from LWLD Construction Engineering of Namibia, that the remaining works at the new border would be completed by June this year.

She said the remaining workers included the putting up of roads connecting the new border, putting up of the drainage system and fencing the border infrastructure among others.

The new Katimamulilo border has a scanning building, an offloading bay, houses for workers and a building for customs and immigration officers among other facilities.

Ms Kansembe assured ZRA officers that they would soon be accommodated within the new border facility at Katimamulilo once the facility was commissioned saying the new facility was secure.

The contractor, a Mr Mulube, said his firm recently received more than K1 billion out of the required K5 billion to complete remaining works at the new border in the next four months.

Ms Kensembe also said the Government would consider the request by ZRA workers to introduce security boats along the Zambezi River to patrol the waters and curb the smuggling of goods.

Ms Kansembe said the introduction of security boats would curb smuggling of goods at Kazungula, Katimamulilo, Victoria Falls and Kariba borders where Zambia and other neighbouring countries were separated by the Zambezi River.

She reiterated her call to custom officers to uphold integrity and avoid engaging in corruption.

ZRA Katimamulilo border post workers earlier asked Ms Kansembe and other relevant authorities to open the new border infrastructure and address the challenges of poor accommodation, insufficient staff and poor security.

A worker, David Kaunda, said the new border infrastructure should be opened so that better results were achieved.