‘DUBAIS’ IMPORT PERMITS FORGED, SOLD FOR E800

MBABANE – While government is tightening the screws in the import vehicle industry; some people have started a thriving forgery business, siphoning thousands of Emalangeni from the administration.

Government, through the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, on August 28, 2020, set in motion a plan to limit the importation of vehicles into the country. This was done through Gazette 183 of 2020 (The Used Motor Vehicle Import Permit). This piece of legislation sought to cap the importation of grey vehicles, which are popularly known as Dubais, to those manufactured not beyond seven years. When this legal notice came into effect at the end of August, the Ministry of Finance stopped to grant import permits for vehicles older than seven years, which saw the Eswatini Import Car Dealership Association (EICDA) crying foul as they claimed to be losing millions due to vehicles stuck in ports of entry as they did not have import permits.

Challenge

As this challenge engulfed the import industry, some unscrupulous individuals have taken advantage of the situation and started producing import permits at a fee. The permits retailing at E800 in the streets of Mbabane despite that ordinarily, an import permit is offered free of charge by government. The duplicators capitalised on the fact that the government document has one security feature, which is a micro printing of ‘Ministry of Finance’ written in capital letters using a small font across the document. The font is in the colour turquoise. Turquoise is a greenish-blue colour while micro printing  is typing tiny words, too small for the human eye to read, printed as part of lines or other areas of a document. It is a security feature that seeks to make it harder to forge documents.

However, those reproducing the documents were able to circumvent making it obvious to the naked eye that it was fake. Even the quality of the paper is the same. In fact, just like the original import certificate, the fake copy on the top, has a one centimetre of micro printing which is followed by the three national colours being navy blue, yellow and red. 

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: