Task Force Emerges to Tackle Illicit Trade

The Office of the Prime Minister has formed a task force that will be tasked with fighting contraband and illicit trading in a bid to tackle ever-growing contraband activities.

Chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, the task force has 28 members. Ministers of Agriculture, Health, Trade & Industry, Mines & Petroleum and Finance; governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia; representatives from the Office of the Attorney General, Police Commission, the National Intelligence & Security Service; and heads of the regional states are among the members.

The task force will cascade through all tiers of the government structure from the federal to regional levels, including zones, towns, weredasand rural kebelestructures. The regional presidents will lead the regional level councils and have bureau heads as members to supervise the operations of zones, towns, weredasand kebeles.

Two years ago, the Council of Ministers formed the same task force, which was chaired by former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The former team has the then Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority as a secretariat, while representatives from the then Ministry of Trade, National Export Coordinating Council and the then Ministry of Finance & Economic Cooperation were members.

"The new task force will be the extension of the previous," said Zemede Tefera, state minister for Revenues, “But this one has more power and commitment.”

The formation of the task force is one of the government's two significant agendas for the current fiscal year, according to Demeke, adding that the government will vigorously work on fighting contrabandtrade and creating three million jobs in the current fiscal year.

The team will use this month as a preparation period and will commence operations in September, according to Mulugeta Beyene, deputy commissioner of the Customs Commission in charge of customs compliance.

The contraband activity has been a headache for the country, becoming the primary reason for declining export revenues. In the just-ended fiscal year, Ethiopia earned about 2.7 billion dollars from commodity exports, well short of the planned 4.3 billion dollars.