The Tanzania Bureau of Standards, in collaboration with the Tanzania Revenue Authority, is planning to stop registration of un-inspected and tested vehicles which are imported into the country through Zanzibar.
Speaking when handing over licenses and tested products certificates to 22 firms over the weekend, the TBS Acting Director, Charles Ekelege said the bureau had discovered that some businessmen used Zanzibar�s route because there was no inspection or testing of the vehicles conducted.
`We have established this malpractice. We will discuss with TRA to deal with such importers and we have decided to make Zanzibar route an official route,` he said.
Ekelege said Zanzibar was being used as unauthorised route for importation of unchecked and tested vehicles.
`Vehicles that will be established to have been imported through such routes will not be registered,` he said.
The TBS chief said importers needed to go straight to the bureau for inspection instead of embarking on illegal ways of importing vehicles into the country.
He urged the public to stop importing vehicles illegally via Zanzibar because the route would soon be rendered official.
Ekelege said licences that the bureau had provided were for the purpose of ensuring safety and security of udders whether it be food or any facility.
`We have also issued a licence for a Singaporean company to inspect vehicles before they are imported into the country. We have done so because vehicles are becoming another national disaster following accidents that are caused by substandard vehicles,` he said.
`If one makes statistics in the country, one will find that deaths caused by vehicles are almost equal to deaths caused by diseases such as malaria and HIV/Aids,` he said.
He insisted that to do away with accidents, the bureau would continue to test vehicles before they were imported into the country to avoid turning it a dumping area.
Shamil Thuwein, representative of Planet Automotive from Singapore said his company was ready to inspect vehicles imported to Tanzania right from his country.
`According to the licence given, it is our duty to inspect all vehicles in Singapore that are destined to Tanzania,` he said.
Thuwein admitted that it was difficult to control illegal importation of vehicles through Zanzibar, but commended the move by TBS and TRA to make the route official.
`It is in that way that we can as well contribute to the control of un-inspected vehicles,`he said.
He said majority of people preferred using the Zanzibar route because there were no inspections of vehicles conducted.
No comments:
Post a Comment