Abel Kagumire (C),Commissioner Customs Department and officials from UWA and security agencies addressing the press
Uganda Revenue Authority’s Customs Department Tuesday handed over 7,421Kgs of ivory & other items to Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) for safe custody before their final disposal in line with the applicable international laws and regulations.
Others handed over were 766 kilograms of pangolin scales, 11.1 kilograms of hippo teeth, 3 python skins, lion skin, 20 kilograms of buffalo horns, lion jaws and python head among others.
Speaking at the hand over event at URA offices in Kampala, Abel Kagumire,Commissioner Customs Department, said in a bid to strengthen their inter-agency coordination, a Joint Ports Control Unit (JPCU) was established by a cooperation framework signed in 2015, with the assistance from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
This consists of Uganda Police Force, Uganda Wildlife Authority and Customs, with its headquarters established at Nakawa URA offices in the year 2017.
The three agencies have together benefited from the joint capacity building exercises facilitated by UNODC, the joint planning, joint interventions, and utilization of the shared resources like the office premises, the computers hand held scanners, etc. as donated by the UNODC.
“Since the establishment of the JPCU, in addition to the other seizures done in other fields, eight (08) successful interventions were registered in the area of protecting the endangered species over a period of four years (2018 – 2021) where we have successfully intercepted a total of 7,421 Kgs of Ivory and other related items,” Kagumire said.
He noted that wild fauna and flora in their many beautiful and varied forms are an irreplaceable part of the natural systems of the earth which must be protected for this and the generations to come;
He added that there is an ever-growing value of wild fauna and flora from aesthetic, scientific, cultural, recreational and economic points of view.
“Therefore, inter – agency and international co-operation is essential for the protection of certain species of wild fauna and flora against over-exploitation through international trade; Our Wildlife consists of endangered species that ought to be protected in accordance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Signed at Washington, D.C., on 3 March 1973,” Kagumire said.
In additional to the other traditionally known roles of Customs, Kagumire said URA has the duty and responsibility to enforce the national, regional and international laws that either restrict or prohibit Trade in endangered species as prescribed in the CITES convention.
“This duty is executed in close coordination at strategic, tactical and operational level with Other Government Agencies, which include Uganda Wildlife Authority, National Forest Authority, and the Security Agencies,” he said, adding that as the lead agency, Customs took the responsibility of seizure and subsequently storage of the above in the Customs warehouse pending the handover of the same to the competent Authority (UWA) for further management.
“We are Looking forward to our involvement as key stakeholders in the final disposal of the same so that they do not get back to the very hands we seized the items from,” Kagumire said, adding: “On the part of Customs, we have procured and deployed cargo scanners at our major border crossing points of Malaba, Busia, Mutukula, Mirama, Elegu and Katuna with a view to further improve on our capacity to detect concealment of such products among the timber and other products for export to the middle and far east.”
