Cereals, animals from Tanzania smuggled to Somalia, Sudan

Tarime police authorities have impounded eight trucks for illegally smuggling maize out of Tanzania.

The smugglers have allegedly been using secret routes going out of the villages of Kubiterere, Gosebe and Sirari to spirit cereals and animals to nearby Kenya, Somalia and Sudan even as many parts of Tanzania face critical food shortages.

The Tarime and Rorya Special Police Zone commander, Constantine Massawe, told the press that the trucks were seized with the cargos during a police operation at the villages on Tuesday.

The vehicles and their haul are being held at Sirari Police Station, according to Massawe, who also said that the smugglers sourced the maize from the districts of Bukombe and Bariadi in Shinyanga Region.

The vehicle operators are being held for questioning, and the police plan to file formal charges against them for failure to comply with export ordinances and for shipping maize outside Tanzania without relevant trading licences and permits.

“Some of the journalists who visited the border towns of Kubiterere, Gosebe and Sirari, including this reporter witnessed several other trucks and semi-trailers attempting to illegally cross through to Kenya taking with them bags of maize and rice, and many heads of livestock,” he said.

The merchandise is being sold at the Kenyan town of Isebania, where a bag of Tanzanian maize fetches over 85,000/-, according to local sources.

Estimates put cereal volumes being smuggled via these routes at over 10,000 tonnes per day, they said. Additionally, 5,000 heads of cattle, 15,000 goats and 8,000 sheep are smuggled from Tarime through Kenya to as far afield as Somalia and Sudan.

The situation is made worse by the fact that the government receives no revenue from any of these traders, since the shipments are simply unregulated, and violations of national export laws and its tax code go unpunished.

Officials at the Agriculture and Livestock Department at Sirari Customs Office have consistently failed to take action despite the fact that the smugglers operate in broad daylight, without fear of reprisal.

Despite an earlier edict by Tarime District Commissioner John Henjewele, who directed officials to seize vehicles belonging to these unscrupulous traders, the food smuggling business goes on freely; which is a cause of concern for many local residents who are asking that government investigates officials working at these border crossings as they have failed to do their jobs.