Thupeyo Muleya — Parliamentarians from the Public Accounts Committee have praised the Beitbridge Border Post modernisation, which has improved efficiency following the automation of services and separation of traffic.
Government and the Zimborders Consortium have completed the transformation of the country's busiest port of entry at a cost of US$300 million.
In addition to having terminals dedicated for freight, buses, light vehicles and pedestrians, services are automated and the security systems have been upgraded to use mostly biometrics to prevent undesirable people from accessing systems at the border.
The automation also removes the possibility of corrupting officials, since machines cannot be bribed.
Committee members visited the border post on Saturday on an oversight visit, to assess operations of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), following some red flags raised by the Auditor-General.
Some of the issues pertain to the management of State warehouses, the challenges Zimra is having in getting services from some suppliers and the management of temporary import permits, among others.
Committee chairperson Mr Chalton Hwende said the members of the Public Accounts Committee had observed that the fast cargo scanners, drone surveillance technology, sniffer dogs, the separation of traffic and the beefing up of security, was contributing to Zimra's improved capacity for revenue collection.
"We came here as part of our oversight role as Parliament to verify certain issues that had been raised by the Auditor General with regards to the operations of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority," said Mr Hwende.
"As you are aware two weeks ago, there were several issues that were raised by the Auditor-General. These have to do with non-compliance with accounting standards and the issue to do with suppliers paid to deliver 56 cars, but have only delivered 12 vehicles and other challenges.
"We did an inquiry, but today we took a decision as a committee that we cannot be doing this only in Parliament and hence the need to make follow up visits. So, we are verifying if what we heard in Parliament is the same as what is still happening on the ground."
Mr Hwende said the team had noted an improvement in revenue collection on domestic taxes where Zimra is now using the new tax and revenue management system, which recently replaced the previous system.
Zimra acquired the software package that it is rolling out in phases at a cost of US$12 million.
Other reports received by the committee related to complaints from taxpayers and ordinary citizens regarding Zimra's operations.
"We are here to see this new system physically in operation. Our observations from the presentations that were made is that there is value for the money on the new system," he said.
"We have seen that 60 percent of the revenue from ZIMRA is now coming through the new tax and revenue collection system, which is mainly used for domestic taxes.
"Revenue collection has increased and we are happy on that aspect. There were issues on the warehouse operations on goods that were confiscated for legal reasons," he said.
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In some instances, said Mr Hwende, goods were rotting in State warehouses due to the acceptable holding period of between 60 days and 90 days before they are disposed of. This waiting period created problems for perishable goods.
Parliamentarians had noted the need to review the legal time for Zimra to dispose of the goods to ensure the Government doesn't lose a lot of revenue when goods perish or get wasted, while being kept pending the 90 days' period.
Zimra Commissioner-General, Ms Regina Chinamasa said the new tax and revenue collection system was a game-changer on revenue collection and that between January and May, Zimra collected US$547 million, with revenue from other taxes giving ZiG10 billion.
