New Marking Systems for Togo and DR Congo

While South Africa battles with booming illicit tobacco and alcohol trade that, according to its revenue service, ‘may or may not require track and trace’, other countries in Africa are moving swiftly ahead with the introduction of secure marking and track and trace systems before the end of this year.

One of these countries is Togo, which, from 1 September, will introduce its Système Automatisé de Marquage (SAM), an automated production monitoring, secure fiscal marking and traceability system. SAM will be implemented on a number of excisable products, for the purpose of simplifying and increasing tax collections, distinguishing compliant products from illicit ones, identifying the origin of products, and promoting legitimate business practices.

The system, which is provided by SICPA, involves the application of either paper-based tax stamps or directly applied secure tax marks (depending on the type of product to be marked) on unit-level items.

According to Togo’s revenue authority, l’Office Togolais des Recettes (OTR), the annual taxes lost to illicit practices such as under-declaration and smuggling, on consumer products such as cigarettes, beer and fruit juice, lie in the region of $27 million.