Impacts of smuggling on economic development of a country.

Smuggling as a form of IFFs is the illegal movement of goods, people and money across borders. It can be done secretly or openly but whatever the intentions are, it always violates the rule of law in any given country. Smuggling can involve different purposes such as tax evasion, import export restrictions or prohibitions on certain items.                                                       

Smuggling can involve different methods such as hiding, disguising, bribing and using violence. Some examples of smuggling include smuggling drugs in and out of the country such as cocaine and heroin, smuggling immigrants across the border or people who want to enter the country without legal documents and visas, smuggling items like artifacts from museums and smuggling of goods that are subjected to high taxes.

Smuggling is one form of IFFs in which money earned or transferred or used illegally across borders. This deprives countries of important resources that could be used for development and poverty reduction. They undermine the integrity of financial institutions and the stability of the financial system.

The economy is affected in many ways for instance bypassing taxes that legitimate businesses pay, creating instability which discourages investments and diverting resources from productive sectors.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Organized Crime (UNODC) East Africa is a major transit route for heroin from Afghanistan to Europe and North America as well as cocaine from south America to Asia and Africa. The international airports in Nairobi and Addis Ababa are key entry points for illicit drugs in the region. According to UNHCR, thousands of refugees and migrants from East Africa suffer extreme human rights injustices on their way to Libya and Europe.

The bodies fighting corruption in East Africa both at national and regional bodies include UNODC which provides technical assistance and capacity building to the countries in the regional to combat smuggling of immigrants and wild life, INTERPOL which facilitates information sharing to investigate and prosecute smuggling networks and Better Migration Management which is a regional program funded by EU that aims to improve migration management from the horn of Africa. In Uganda we have an anti smuggling unit-ASU that is responsible for inventing and preventing smuggling of goods and contraband across across the country's borders. It works hand in hand with the Uganda Revenue Authority.

To read more about this illegal trade follow this link. 

https://www.unodc.org/easternafrica/en/Stories/chartering-the-way-for-an-east-africa-free-of-trafficking-and-smuggling.html

 

Witten and compiled by

Prima Birungi  program assistant- IAIF