URA to introduce smart gate to combat trade fraud at border points

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) revealed that it will soon introduce smart gate, an automated self-service border control system to combat trade fraud including under and over-declaration of imports and exports.

The gates are in addition to other measures in place such as cargo digital scanners, bar code readers and regional electronic cargo tracking systems used to fight fraud at the border points.

Smart Gate uses facial recognition technology to verify the traveler’s identity against the data stored in the chip in their biometric passport, as well as checking against immigration databases.

Abel Kagumire, the commissioner for Customers at URA said these Smart Gates have been procured and they will soon be installed at the Busia border point and Busitema.

“We are doing a regional electronic cargo tracking system. We fix what we call electronic seals on a truck and we monitor it. We have tried our level best to try to curb the criminalities. We have barcode readers. We are going into smart gates. They capture all the information including truck number and container number,” he said.

While URA collected Shs 6 trillion in revenue from customs last year, the tax body believes that with the help of a regional electronic cargo tracking system, they will collect Shs 9 trillion in the current financial year.

URA indicates that the country’s tax register has about 3.3 million taxpayers and 70% are in the formal sector but many eligible taxpayers in the informal sector don’t pay taxes.