KIGALI - Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA), yesterday officially unveiled three state-of-the art scanners to be used at different customs points to speed up inspection and effectiveness in screening contents of vehicles entering the country.

The scanners which cost $6m from a grant provided by the World Bank through the Ministry of Infrastructure will start operating with immediate effect since they have already been tested.

In his speech during the handover ceremony, the Minister of Infrastructure, Vincent Karega, congratulated RRA on the new acquisition, saying it reflected government’s determination in the use of ICTs to ease service provision.

"There is no doubt this facility is going to speed up the screening processes at the customs since it will only take 10 minutes to inspect a vehicle,” the Minister said.

He said that on top of ensuring speedy screening of loaded vehicles, these scanners will keep records of suspicious vehicles to help in tracking of fraud clients at the customs.

"This is going to bring about authenticity at RRA customs operations and facilitate easy tracking of suspicious vehicles,” he added

The Deputy Commissioner General of RRA, Eugene Torero, told The New Times that the scanners are not only going to benefit RRA but the entire population, because other institutions ,especially security organs like the police, will also use them.

"These scanners are going to be used by other institutions and will provide a mechanism of cracking down on illicit substances and materials like weapons which could easily be sneaked into the country,” said Torero.

He said that these scanners will significantly help RRA to crackdown on smuggling and transportation of unlawful goods.

The mobile scanners have an inbuilt system that includes high tech computers and cameras that screen, scan and transmit signals and pictures to the operators on what is in the vehicle.

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