BURS efforts most commended
Mmegi Editor | Wednesday February 22, 2017 17:06
A few years after introducing scanners at several of the bordergates to detect illicit goods coming into the country, the innovation seems to be bearing fruit. Officers at our borders have been able to detect smuggled goods, drugs, and possibly weapons coming into the country or in transit to other destinations.
The scanners have brought more revenue to the country as it is now impossible not to declare goods for taxation. Of course a lot still needs to be done as evidenced by recent reports of large drug consignments entering the country. Most of these drugs are from neighbouring countries such as South Africa and are destined for the local market.
The introduction of sniffer dogs recently will definitely bear more good results, since the animals are highly skilled and objective and cannot take bribes no matter what.
The use of sniffer dogs is a worldwide practice in busy airports where hundreds of thousands of passengers pass in transit to other destinations. They have been used in detecting drugs and have proven to be very effective.
Sniffer dogs have also been used in tracking suspects in criminal activities. According to BURS board chairperson, Taufila Nyamadzabo the dogs can detect narcotics, endangered species, currency, copper wire, and tobacco amongst others. Tobacco smuggling has become big business for criminal syndicates who are faced with new international laws and conventions that aim at reducing tobacco smoking across the globe.
They have employed many tactics to ensure that their trade in tobacco does not feel the impact of the new laws. It is therefore commendable that BURS found it urgent to bring these dogs on board.
We take this opportunity to appeal to other government departments and parastatals to be innovative in improving service delivery, and to reduce long queues in public service centres. Innovation will also reduce waiting periods for applications for any kind of service.
Departments such as those responsible for land allocation should adopt more innovations and creativity to reduce the waiting period for applications for land. It is unbelievable that in this era of information technology, our Land Boards are still processing manually applications as far back as the late 1990s, and they have no idea what to do with the hundreds of thousands of applications that keep coming in.
We hope that BURS and others who have chosen to be innovative will inspire others who are still lagging behind.
Today’s thought
“It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date.”
– Roger von Oech