By Own Correspondent- The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) on Thursday busted an attempt by MDC-deputy chairman Tendai Biti to smuggle copies of his book, Democracy Works, without paying import duties, a state media report has alleged.

The book, which was co-authored with former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, Greg Mills of the Brenthurst Foundation and Jeffrey Herbst, the president of the American Jewish University was however launched at SAPES Trust with only a few copies available.

Said Biti, while addressing those who attended the launch:

“The book will be launched again in due course after they are released from where they are confiscated. We will call you (Obasanjo, Mills and Herbst) again for another launch.”

However, the state media report claimed that the incident happened at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport ahead of the book’s official launch at Sapes Trust resulting in delays of the proceedings.

Read the report:

“Soon after the launch, Biti acknowledged that the consignment of books had been confiscated over import duty.”

Biti was quoted saying:

“They just took our books. We had like 200 books which we intended to give our people, but they just took them and mind you this is the second time they just took them. They just gave the excuse (about) customs and we said we can pay the duty, they refused.”