The Nation, Kenya
June 17 2006

Row over Armenians’ container

Story by PATRICK MAYOYO
Publication Date: 6/17/2006

A tug of war erupted yesterday over the verification of goods in a
container belonging to the Artur brothers, which is still awaiting
clearance at Mombasa port.

The row pitted Trade ministry officials against the Customs department,
as the latter was accused of failing to follow procedures and
overstepping its mandate.

A police officer, with assistance of a sniffer dog, examines goods
in the container belonging to the two Armenian brothers during the
verification at the port of Mombasa yesterday.

Trade ministry officials said their department, which is responsible
for authenticating weights and measures, were locked out during the
verification.

Standard procedures for examining goods under dispute required that
all the items in a container had to be displayed and verified before
being cleared.

But this was not done for the goods belonging to the Artur Margaryan
and Artur Sargasyan.

During the verification all the goods were removed but they were not
checked item by item or a stock taken before they were re-packed into
the container. "A 100 per cent verification requires that goods being
subjected to such an exercise should all be removed from a container
and a stock taken before being returned in the container but this is
not what happened," said one of the Trade ministry officials.

The officials, who did not want to be named, also said cases of false
imports declarations were handled by Trade ministry and not Customs.

The latter was responsible for cases of under-valuation of goods.

"All matters related to false entries on Import Declaration Form
(IDF) are dealt with under the Trade Descriptions Act and this was
the case with the Artur brothers’ container," the officials said.

But the Kenya Revenue Authority officials defended their action,
saying it was not compulsory that all the items in the container be
inspected and their inventory done.

The senior deputy commissioner in charge of Southern region, Mr
Ntogaiti Muronga, confirmed that the goods found in the Armenian
brothers container were not what they had declared.

"The declaration form indicated that the goods were colour televisions
but we have found in the container generators, gas cookers, DVDs,
music systems and mobile phones," he said.

Three mattresses were also among the imported goods, raising questions
why the Artur brothers had to import mattresses yet they could buy
them locally.

Questions were also raised over the failure to check the bottom of
the container as there was suspicion that it had a false compartment.

But a senior police officer said the search by the sniffer dog cleared
doubts of contraband goods being in the container.

Mr Muronga said KRA had also launched investigations into reports
that there were 29 containers linked to the Artur brothers which
had entered the country but which are suspected to be still waiting
clearance or could have been cleared without correct duties being paid.

He said that out of the 29 containers said to have been brought into
the country by the Artur brothers, KRA had located three and was
still looking for more.

"Upon verifying one the three containers in our custody, we have
established that the Government could have lost more than Sh3 million
in taxes," he said.

Mr Muronga confirmed that the three containers belonged to Kensington
International Ltd in which the Artur brothers are directors.

Immediately after their deportation last week, one of the Artur
brothers refuted reports that the container was carrying contract
band goods, saying it had generators he wanted to donate to Mama Ngina
Children’s Home. Before the verification, there was an attempt to bar
journalists from the place. They were only allowed to stay on after
they protested.

The verification started shortly after 9am when all the goods were
removed from the container before and randomly checked. It ended
at 1.30pm.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress