The Tax Authority (AT) of Mozambique, Manica delegation, last year exceeded the revenue collection plan by collecting just over 2.6 billion meticais of the 2.2 billion planned, which represents an achievement of 117.4 percent.

In 2020, the TA in this province had a plan to collect 1.9 billion meticais and managed to collect just over 2.2 billion, corresponding to an achievement of 115 percent.

If the two periods are compared, there is an increase in the order of 0.4 billion meticais, according to the president of the AT, Amelia Muendane, who, however, referred to the fact that the province of Manica is vulnerable to customs risk because it is the "heart" of the Beira Corridor where there is greater flow of goods.

Speaking in Chimoio, at the ceremony to award 50 paramilitary customs officers, Muendane said that the Machipanda border post, which leads to Zimbabwe, represents 90% of the total revenue collected in the province, a fact that challenges the customs authorities to tighten the siege in order to reduce the smuggling of goods, a practice that tends to gain alarming contours in the country.

"The province of Manica is one of the most important in the central region of the country in terms of revenue collection and foreign trade management, as it is the center of the Beira Corridor that links the provinces of Tete and Sofala. In addition, Manica is a strategic province in terms of foreign trade management and the flows that occur at the level of foreign trade," said Amelia Muendane.

According to the president of the TA, in terms of collections in 2021, the province managed to meet the goals set by the government. She mentioned that this year the goals were increased, indicating that overall the institution's goal grew by about 10.7 percent, which means that Manica will also have the greatest challenge in collection.

Muendane recognized that the province has a different characteristic from the others, because, besides the resources coming from the agrarian sector, it holds mineral resources such as gold, precious and semi-precious stones, and others explored in that region.

"There are big challenges for the authorities to ensure that the market is well organized and mapped to ensure that the informal sector that abounds in the exploitation of the mining sector has a better organization, through cooperativism to ensure that the resources coming from the exploitation of the different precious minerals that we have are allocated in the well identified market in order to clarify the business," he said.

He added that Manica has an important border for business with the hinterland, because it has a road and rail component. "Through this border we verify flow of goods in transit from Beira airport to hinterland and vice versa," he mentioned.

He also explained that most of the goods that pass through this corridor, even if they are not classified as taxable in Mozambique, may have a fiscal risk resulting from transit simulation, hence the need to intensify the control actions of all types of cross-border movement.