By Arthur Muhanguzi
In the smuggling , a consolidation centre is a facility where a smuggler after successfully getting his contraband inland finally gathers it all together to do ‘business’.
These ‘goods’ usually don’t have customs clearance documents as the smugglers use porous points in the border districts to get them into Uganda on either foot, bicycle or motorcycle.
They bring the goods in small rations to avoid detection only to put them all together to form a bigger catch hence the term consolidation. Serere district is one of those smuggling-heavy border districts and Kateta town has been singled out more prominently than any other town in the intelligence gathering circles of late.
The ground was set for a focused operation on the identified consolidation centres in Kateta that took place last Tuesday executed by the Busitema Enforcement team.
The team searched the named shops and found contraband in secret stores behind the shops that the owners couldn’t account for with customs clearance documents. The goods were seized and delivered to the Busitema station for offence management proceedings to kick off but not before the community was educated about the perils of smuggling to the economy and to those caught.
The one-day preventive operation recovered:-
1) 220cartons of Pembe wheat flour
2) 100cartons of Kibuyu Bar Washing Soap,
