AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA Revenue Authority (TRA) officials in Manyara Region have been arrested and taken to court by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), for allegedly soliciting 10m/-contrary to law.
The officials are Subilaga Mwangama and Ojungu Mollel who are said to have intercepted a businessperson who remains anonymous and were able to get from him the money in contravention of Section 15 of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act No11 of 2017. They appeared before Manyara Resident Magistrate In-charge V.J. Kimario.
PCCB Manyara Regional Head, Holle Makungu said investigation had been completed and prosecution led by PCCB Attorney, Isdory Kyando assisted by his colleague Martini Makani.
Mr Makungu said the businessperson was a good taxpayer in Mbulu District and in 2018 paid more than 9m/-tax.
He was summoned by the two officials who are now accused in March this year and was told that tax estimations were wrongly calculated so tax was supposed to increase 5,812,544/-.
The businessperson agreed and started paying in instalments after striking an agreement with the officials. He was, however, summoned later and was supposed to go to Babati for consultation about unpaid tax in 2018 although they had already estimated and increased more than 5m/-.
Mr Makungu said the TRA officials notified him that there was another amount he was supposed to pay, that is 45m/-.
“That last increase put the businessperson in a difficult moment, but the officials cooled the businessperson down, saying they were able to reduce the sum from 45m/-to 9m/-if he was ready to consider them,” Mr Makungu revealed.
PCCB investigation has concluded that a discussion on the amount of money that was to be given them went on between the accused and the businessperson who was directed to pay them 20m/-, but it went down up to 10m/-and the businessperson was advised to send it through an agent in Babati Township. PCCB investigators set up a trap and finally arrested the culprits.
Mr Makungu advised TRA Regional Office in Manyara and the country in general to have a fresh look at the tax payment system so that it was transparent and understandable to all traders in the country. In that way, he said, it would make it easy to control, track and combat corrupt transactions. He said there were still loopholes that the officials were using by hiking tax to businesspersons to threaten them and end up taking bribes.
The accused were granted bail on condition of two sureties for each and signing a 7m/-bond each. The case will come up for mention on Saturday.
