Taxman defies police and DPP, releases exhibits

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has snubbed a guidance by both Police’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to withhold imports worth $200,000 (Shs736m), which the law enforcement agencies seized as exhibit.
The consignment was being held at a warehouse in Mukono and detectives inquired into whether the claimants may have duped a Chinese firm and imported the goods into the country.

CID director, Ms Grace Akullo, and DPP Mike Chibita wrote to Livercot Impex Ltd, an internal container depot in Namanve Industrial Park, to release the containers only to the person with the original bill of lading.
Police say their investigations shows that JD Heiskell Holding Ltd likely forged a bill of lading that they used to clear the goods from Kenya’s Mombasa seaport before paying Kukdo Chemicals as earlier agreed. We could not independently confirm the allegations and were unable to speak to JD Heiskell for their side of the story.

URA, according to officials, released four of the containers in spite of specific police and public prosecutor’s communication not to do so. The claimants had however petitioned a magistrate’s court, which on July 23 authorised release of the consignment.
Taxes had already been paid on the imports, according to the taxman.
“The four containers for which taxes and duties are not yet paid to Uganda Revenue Authority should only be paid to the applicant after payment of requisite duties and taxes,” the order signed by a one Juliet Hatanga reads in part.

URA’s Commissioner for Customs, Mr Dickson Kateshumbwa, said yesterday that: “We are handling the matter in accordance with the court guidance and customs law.”
He declined to discuss whether URA’s act of freeing consignment that both police and DPP, responsible for assembling incriminating evidence and prosecuting suspected criminals, impounded as exhibits, would not undermine their case in an ongoing investigations.

Our investigations show that URA officials last Saturday removed the eight containers from Livercot Impex Ltd and moved them to Nakawa in Kampala from where they later released four of the containers believed to hold some of the exhibits to JD Heiskell Holding Ltd.
One of the company’s directors is under police investigations in relation to transactions with Kukdo Chemicals of China.
Police and DPP in previous correspondences asked URA to release the consignment to only an importer who presents original bills of lading and ensure any other claimant, without police clearance, is arrested to face prosecution.

“You are, therefore, instructed to release the goods in question to the party with the original bills of lading as by law established,” CID director Akullo wrote on July 26.
The public prosecutor expressed similar views in a separate letter to Livercot Implex Ltd.
The eight containers were impounded in March and have been lying at a warehouse run by Livercot Impex Ltd following a complaint from Gulf Badr Group branch manager, Ms Eunice Karugonjo.

Ms Karugonjo registered a complaint on behalf of Kukdo Chemicals of China after the containers were allegedly fraudulently cleared from Mombasa without due payment as earlier agreed.
The Deputy Registrar of the Commercial court, Mr Festo Nsenga, last evening issued a court order restraining AG Processing Incer (Group) from removing goods in the eight containers pending hearing of an application on August 1.
Ms Karugonjo said she was looking for the two companies to serve them with a restraining order.

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