Beira port: 26 containers of contraband timber seized – Mozambique

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Beira port: 26 containers of contraband timber seized – Mozambique

11:42 CAT | 02 Feb 2018

Photo: Diário de Moçambique

Twenty-six containers of monzo and chanate wood logs and planks being exported through the Port of Beira have seized by Sofala Forest and Wildlife Services in coordination with Mozambican customs.

The containers, 17 of which contained chanate planks and nine logs, whose total volume has not yet been announced, arrived in Beira by rail from Tete province, where it is presumed to have been logged.

The goods belong to the Chinese company Xeng Xeng, which buys and exports timber from Mozambique.

Diário de Moçambique reports that the case indicates that the smuggling of timber is still prevalent in the centre of the country, which is rich in forest resources, recalling that in December last year at least 2,700 cubic metres of logs and planks from Manica and Tete were seized in the Port of Beira.

Sofala Forestry and Wildlife Services inspector Domingos Manuel Ncuinda said that the logs did not have any of the necessary documentation for exploitation, transit or export, while the sawn wood was covered by documentation which expired on 31 December, 2017.

“The company does not hold a wood exploitation license. It only bought and exported. The logs, whose export is prohibited by law, was supposedly covered by the documentation for the sawn wood, which had expired,” he said.

Xeng Xeng company, holder of the product documentation, was fined 3,680,000 meticais. Ncuinda said that an act of reliable trustee for the wood was drawn up in favour of the State.

He pointed out that information on the illegal transport of the wood by rail came from the General Directorate of the National Agency for Environmental Quality Control (AQUA) of the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, leading the sector at provincial level to track the merchandise seized.

Source: Diário de Moçambique