Kenya plans to start transporting crude oil from Turkana to the Port of Mombasa next month for export. Petroleum Secretary John Munyes says the government has already addressed security and logistical challenges that marred the first attempt last July to start exports under the Early Oil Pilot Scheme. Munyes has further said the construction of a crude oil pipeline from Lokichar to Lamu will start in the fourth quarter of this year. Last year, Kenya was hoping to join the league of crude oil exporters in the world, by trucking crude oil from Lokichar basin in Turkana to the Port of Mombasa for shipment to the international market. However, the plans jointly by the government and Tullow Oil flopped due to poor road network, security concerns and lack of a law on revenue sharing. Kenya plans to transport by road between 2,000 to 4,000 liters of the crude oil to the Changamwe storage facilities. CS Munyes has said the early oil pilot scheme will start in the next one month. Tullow Oil already has 70,000 barrels of crude stored in Lokichar in readiness for transportation to the Port of Mombasa by specialized lorries and has decried the delays in kick-starting the export programme. Early oil exports would be followed by commercial production and exports after the pipeline is completed in the year 2021. Munyes has also said the government will soon invite tenders for the exploration of crude oil and natural gas in Samburu County. French oil giant total SA...

Forty-four African leaders gathered in Kigali last month and signed a continental free-trade agreement (FTA). By so doing, they laid the foundation stone for the creation of an enormous free-trade area that will likely facilitate regional integration and inspire economic growth across the continent. Although I support this leap of faith, I am not too sure that the negotiations leading up to this treaty have exhausted all points of friction. Implementing the treaty will certainly require some nurturing of relationships and massive support from citizens of every African country. This is so because the FTA is a product of pronouncements from top leadership without details that matter in such agreements. This process first started in October 2008, when the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) held a summit that birthed the African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ). In 2012, it was extended to the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). MASSIVE MARKET In June 2015, at the African Union summit in South Africa, negotiations started to create a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) with all 55 African Union states by 2017. A continental free-trade policy means there will be no restrictions on imports from, or exports to, any African country except for South Africa or Nigeria unless they accede at some point in the future. Nevertheless, even without these two giant states, FTA members...

The EAC Monetary Institute Bill, 2017 and the EAC Statistics Bureau Bill, 2017, are two key pieces of draft legislations on agenda as the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) moves its sitting to Dodoma, Tanzania starting today, Monday. The regional House’s first ever sitting in Tanzania’s designate capital – which starts today Monday and ends on April 28 – is to be presided over by Speaker, Martin Ngoga, with Tanzanian President Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli expected to address the Assembly at a special sitting sometime next week. The two pieces of legislation are critical in the eventual set up of the East African Monetary Union (EAMU), the East African Community’s third pillar of integration preceding the ultimate phase – the EAC Political Federation. Partner States negotiated a Protocol for establishment of the EAMU which was signed by regional leaders in November 2013. The EAMU protocol provides for the establishment of four support institutions: the East African Monetary Institute – a precursor to the East African Central Bank – which was supposed to be set up by December 2015 but never happened, and the East African Statistics Bureau (2018), among others. In March, when MP Dr Pierre Celestin Rwigema (Rwanda) asked the Council of Ministers to inform the House about the status of implementation of the third and fourth pillars of the integration during the last sitting in Arusha, Tanzania, Dr Ali Kirunda Kivejinja, Chairperson of the Council of Ministers, said the EAC Secretariat – the executive organ of the...

Some 73 companies are on track for expedited payment of refunds and reduced customs security checks after they enrolled in an East African Community (EAC) programme to promote regulatory compliance, enhance trade and improve border security. The firms will reap other benefits of the programme, named Authorised Economic Operators (AEO), including automatic passing of their declarations and will undergo no physical examination of goods except where risks are high, among others. The incentives apply to multinationals as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have joined the programme. 73 companies Among private sector organisations to benefit from the AEO programme are Mitchel Cotts Freight, Mzuri Sweets Ltd and Umoja Rubber. "Seventy three companies have so far been enrolled in the programme since it was introduced over three years ago. The EAC targets to enrol over 500 companies in the next five years," said Duncan Karari, Communications Manager at German international development organisation GIZ which provides technical support for the initiative. GIZ is also supporting the EAC integration process and its development goals.Mr Karari said the programme is headed for roll-out. Regional customs The AEO initiative -- launched to reform regional customs services -- targets more than 500 companies, indicating that over 400 more are expected to join in due course. Under the scheme, firms involved in international trade are scrutinised and certified as AEO. The programme is open to all players including clearing agents, revenue authorities and standards bodies. The programme is expected to reduce the cost of doing...

African development hinges on a maddening paradox: its greatest asset—the sheer size and diversity of its landscape—is also the greatest barrier to its development. Landlocked countries are cut off from ports, and the difficulty of moving goods from country to country weighs down intra-continental trade (only 15% of African trade is within Africa. (African Development Bank, 2017) African consumers bear the brunt of these difficulties. [1]. Costs are driven up by a host of factors: tariffs, border delays, corruption. But the biggest challenge is that no streamlined transport route exists between West and East Africa – only a decaying and underdeveloped road and rail system which pushes up costs and drags down efficiency. Several ambitious schemes have been proposed to link Africa’s east and west coasts, some of which are closer to full realization than others. Most notable in this respect is a plan to expand the existing Trans-African Highway 5 (TAH5) into a true cross-continental road and rail link, the early stages of which China has helped bring to fruition where Western consortiums failed. Likewise, Chinese investment in African infrastructure through Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may help create expanded sub-regional linkages, particularly in East Africa, that could help facilitate the emergence of an eventual, true East-West link in the long term. However, in the short-to-mid-term, the obstacles to a truly robust set of East-West transport links are formidable, and it is unlikely that China’s involvement will be a panacea. Long March to the Red Sea Portions...

MOMBASA, KENYA; Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) are engaged in a blame game over the theft of 124 containers at the Mombasa port in 2016. So far, 31 employees from the two State organisations have been charged with causing colossal losses to the exchequer by allowing the containers to leave the port without paying taxes. Early last week, State witnesses testified that retired employees' user accounts and passwords from the information and security departments at KPA were hijacked and used to release cargo without paying duty. Apparently, these accounts remained active even after the employees left the organisation. On Friday, a KRA investigation officer admitted that there could have been collusion between KRA and KPA in the theft of containers that cost the Government more than Sh106 million in unpaid customs duty. Dunstun Majanja, who doubles up as a lawyer for KRA, told Senior Resident Magistrate Francis Kyambia that there was a compromise in the KPA Simba System but could not identify who was responsible. “I can only speculate that there was a compromise at KPA and KRA,” said Mr Majanja, adding that he did not follow up how it happened. During cross-examination by defence lawyers William Mogaka, Michael Oloo, Jared Magolo, Kevin Amani, Boaz Adalla and a Mr Gitonga, Majanja admitted that KRA and KPA often shared information of containers planned for clearance from the port. Manually intervened “There was a compromise in the KPA Simba System because someone had manually intervened by inputting the...

Some 73 companies are on track for expedited payment of refunds and reduced customs security checks after they enrolled in an East African Community (EAC) programme to promote regulatory compliance, enhance trade and improve border security. The firms will reap other benefits of the programme, named Authorised Economic Operators (AEO), including automatic passing of their declarations and will undergo no physical examination of goods except where risks are high, among others. The incentives apply to multinationals as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have joined the programme. 73 companies Among private sector organisations to benefit from the AEO programme are Mitchel Cotts Freight, Mzuri Sweets Ltd and Umoja Rubber. “Seventy three companies have so far been enrolled in the programme since it was introduced over three years ago. The EAC targets to enrol over 500 companies in the next five years,” said Duncan Karari, Communications Manager at German international development organisation GIZ which provides technical support for the initiative. GIZ is also supporting the EAC integration process and its development goals. Mr Karari said the programme is headed for roll-out. Regional customs The AEO initiative — launched to reform regional customs services — targets more than 500 companies, indicating that over 400 more are expected to join in due course. Under the scheme, firms involved in international trade are scrutinised and certified as AEO. The programme is open to all players including clearing agents, revenue authorities and standards bodies. The programme is expected to reduce the cost of doing...

The new US. Ambassador to Rwanda has pledged to engage in fresh talks to iron out issues related to US withdraw of Rwanda’s eligibility for apparel exports under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). On April 3rd, Rwanda issued a statement saying it will not change its decision on second hand Clothes. The new US Ambassador to Rwanda, Peter H. Vrooman who presented his papers of credence to President Kagame today, said part of his agenda is engaging in talks on the issue. “Each country has sovereign decisions regarding trade. I am new to the issue and I will be looking forward to meeting with Ministers who have that in their domain,” he said. According to Ambassador Vrooman, Rwanda’s ban on second-hand clothes is rooted in its traditional decisions – unlike in the US where second-hand clothes is part of the daily business. “In American culture, second-hand clothes is part of daily life but this country has its own tradition,” he said. He added that in his discussions with Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo yesterday, the two agreed that the AGOA issue is a small part of the trade between the two countries. “This is a small part of our trade, but we look forward to enhancing many areas where there can be potential collaboration between our private sectors,” he said. Since its inception in 2000, AGOA has given duty-free and quota-free access to the US market on around 6,000 products from qualifying African countries including Rwanda – with...

Lusaka – Calls for regional integration and boosting of economic growth in Africa will remain unanswered unless all countries strive to fulfil agreements to the letter unlike piece-meal legislation, a leading economist has noted.  In recent years, several African economic blocs – the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) ‑ have signed and adopted various agreements relating to trade but a few, or none, have been ratified and operationalised. Key among the trade agreements that have been signed and not ratified are the Comesa Free Trade Area (FTA) and the recently signed Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) in which 44 African countries signed various agreements during the just-ended AU Summit in Rwanda but remain to be ratified. Sindiso Ngwenya, the Comesa Secretary-General, noted that while there has been a zeal to append signatures on various trade treaties, the majority of agreements still remain on the shelves, unratified to make them fully operational and bolster intra-trade growth in the 54 member states. In an interview with The Southern Times in Lusaka, Ngwenya, the outgoing chief administrator of 25-year-old Comesa, noted that while there has been increasing zeal for countries in various groupings to sign agreements and necessitate their operationalisation, many have remained on the drawing board, incomplete because they are not ratified to the letter. Twenty-two countries out of 26 signed the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) Agreement, Botswana being the latest signatory to the agreement, after signing...

Dar es Salaam, April 6, 2018: TradeMark Africa (TMA) and the Central Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (CCTTFA) have signed a financing agreement geared towards strengthening and enhancing the Central Corridor Transport Observatory (CCTO). The financing will specifically improve monitoring of the Central Corridor performance in-order to support evidence-based advocacy and decision making to remove trade barriers. To that effect, TMA will provide a total of USD 1.3m (Equivalent to approximately TZS 2.86 billion) over a 3-year period (2018 to 2021). “TradeMark Africa is delighted to provide this support to CCTTFA because the organization is producing reliable and timely data on the performance of the Central Corridor Transport Network. This support therefore will further strengthen that work and enable the countries served by the corridor to design interventions to further improve performance of the corridor” said John Ulanga, the Tanzania Country Director. “CCTTFA highly appreciates this funding support from TMA for our Central Corridor Observatory work, the funding will go a long way to support our ongoing efforts and enable us to work with various stakeholders in central corridor partner states to further improve efficiency of the corridor and hence increase the volume of trade going through the corridor for the benefit of the countries”. said Captain Dieudonne Dukundane, Executive Secretary of CCTTFA. To accomplish the above, the CCTTFA will enhance the CCTO into a one stop center platform for availing and accessing relevant information and data related to movement of goods along the Corridor. Specifically, this support will enable...