COOKING OIL TAX EVASION. PART TWO OF THE PLOT BY THE CARTEL
Earlier this month, we unearthed a scam in which some importers and local manufacturing companies of cooking oil had plotted and executed a ploy to evade tax and subjecting consumers to high cooking oil prices on the market, with full knowledge of some officials from the Zambia Revenue Authority and other senior government officials.
More facts to this syndicate have come to light on how some importers and local manufacturing companies of cooking oil are perpetuating continued pilferage and evasion of tax thereby making government lose out on millions of Kwachas that would benefit economic growth.
According to our credible sources, the named companies have made deep inroads into State Inspection, Certification and Standards Agencies, thereby compromising their capabilities to operate independently.
As a result, the quality standards have been manipulated with falsified data and information which the companies have taken advantage of to import refined cooking oil but declaring it as crude oil, leading to revenue leakage for government.
This is a well known crime of which some ZRA officials are much aware of as refined oil imports are not allowed. It is also depriving the state of genuine tax revenues as valuable tax revenue is all lost and government coffers remain bleeding due to the monies going into individual pockets and the named companies.
Sources have further revealed that the named cooking oil companies are conniving with some officials within the Zambia Revenue Authority, Zambia Bureau of Standards etc who are fully aware of the scourge but are silent because they benefiting from these dubious transactions, happening at a time when the New Dawn government is trying hard to seal all revenue leakage loopholes in an effort to rebuild the economy which was broken down as a result of rampant corruption and tax evasion.
According to the sources, they have advised that if government does not intervene to halt this pilferage, the Zambian state coffers will continue to overflow with leakages thereby straining the country’s fiscal space and trigger further upward price adjustments on basic commodities.
The President, Mr Hakainde Hichilema and the Ministry of Finance and National Planning needs to swiftly act to curb this detrimental act by unscrupulous private and government representatives, otherwise, the country will continue to lose out.
In the next publication, we will reveal how this scam is coordinated and the named companies and individuals.
