An operation by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) enforcement team last week netted 52 high performance vehicles for flouting customs regulations.
Over the past decade, it has become a fixture on the Ugandan social calendar for many Ugandans living abroad to come home in a “big way” for the festive season.
The “Bassumer”, as they are commonly referred to tend to spend a fortune during this period. Posh cars often times with foreign registration plates have become synonymous with them.
However, these vehicles sometimes flout regulations. With this insight, these cars were the target of a two-day (16th and 17th January 2018) operation by the Enforcement Team One.
The crackdown started with “zoning Kampala into five focus areas”. Thereafter, six pickup trucks with ready teams were assembled. The teams then scoured the five focus areas in search of vehicles with illegalities.
In the minutes that followed, a total of 52 high performance cars had been netted for various customs offenses as provided for under Section 117 of the East African Customs Community Management Act of 2004.
The Customs offenses for which they were impounded included; expired transit road license (TRL), abuse of exemption on red plate registered vehicles, unauthorized sale or transfer of the foreign vehicles, unauthorized driving and lack of documents.
The motorists were asked to drive the vehicles to the URA (HQ) where after categorization, the following were recorded:-
(1) 11 foreign registered vehicles impounded – for expired transit road license offense.
(2) 11 foreign registered vehicles impounded – for abuse of exemption of red plate registered vehicles.
(3) 20 foreign registered vehicles impounded- for unauthorized driving of the vehicles.
(4) 10 foreign registered vehicles impounded – for lack of documents.
Offence management is underway as per the guidelines of the EACCMA 2004 Act.
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