MOMBASA, KENYA - The cost of clearing cargo at the port of Mombasa and of transport along the Northern Corridor has gone down by 30% since the implementation of the East African Single Customs Territory (SCT). Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner General John Njiraini was recently speaking during a two-day meeting peer review and learning session focused on the SCT. The East African nations are integrating their customs systems to make it possible for the three countries to have a regional bond for goods in transit. This will substantially cut the costs of handling transit cargo and make it more convenient for importers across the region. Njiraini said, “We want to ensure faster clearance of goods at the first point of entry within East Africa, SCT is being implemented in three phases. beginning with bulk cargo such as fuel, wheat grain and clinker used in cement manufacturing. Phase two handles containerized cargo and motor vehicles while the third phase will handle Intra-regional trade among countries implementing the SCT Tripartite arrangement. Njiraini said, “These measures are designed to provide a sound platform to refocus Customs and Border Control operations to address security and revenue collection.” Mid last year, the EAC nations agreed to integrate their customs systems to make it possible to have a regional bond for goods in transit. In 2005 the five Partner States set out to establish a Customs Union when they signed the Custom Union Protocol. When the formalities for establishing the CU were completed, a Customs Union came...

Kenya Railways has allayed fears that the Standard Gauge Railway will push truck owners out of business and render thousands of drivers jobless. There has been talk 80 per cent of cargo from the Port of Mombasa will be reserved for the SGR so that the project remains viable. On Sunday however Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina said the highest cargo preference the parastatal could enjoy was 50 per cent. "Last year 24 million tonnes of cargo passed through the port and is projected to reach 26 million tonnes this year increasing to over 30 million tonnes in 2025. If the SGR takes about 50 per cent, there will still be business for local transporters," he said. "The project is of national and regional strategic importance and as the implementing agency we are keen and actively engaged to ensure it is completed on time and as per contractual specifications," he said. The Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing said the railway is more than 65 per cent complete. Committee Chairman Maina Kamanda said that after travelling from Nairobi to Mombasa on an inspection tour of the line, they were satisfied that the contractor would finish the work by June next year as agreed. "We are impressed by the progress; several sections along the line have started taking shape from the actual track to the sub-stations along the 472 kilometre SGR line," he said. GOOD JOB SO FAR The two were addressing journalists near the Kenya Ports Authority...

NAIROBI: Kenya and Nigeria are seeking to establish a duty-free trade zone between the two countries. This comes following trade talks between Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta. Buhari, who is accompanied by more than three dozen business leaders and investors, winds up his three-day visit today with President Uhuru Kenyatta expected to visit Nigeria in six-months’ time. “We have agreed to have a unit in Kenya and Nigeria that will be concerned with facilitating all interactions concerning trade between these two countries,” said Mr Kiprono Kittony, the chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI). In Kenya, the unit will be housed under the KNCCI’s Nigeria-Kenya business council and chaired by Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi while in Nigeria it will be chaired by Sani Dangote, brother of Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote and vice president of the Dangote Group. “We’ve identified several areas in agro-processing including cotton, tea, horticulture and dairy products that both Nigeria and Kenya can work together in expanding trade between the two countries,” said Mr Dangote. “East Africa is a market of about 150 million people and we have ECOWAS which is more than 350 million-strong and we want the Kenya-Nigeria business council to have its own office so that it can be dedicated to collecting data and facilitating interactions on this agenda,” he said. Kenya’s business community on the other hand expressed the need for policy makers in Nigeria to ease the cost of doing business...

KAMPALA. The Mutukula border post has finally been handed over to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) after being turned into a modern facility.
However, the return on investment will be decided by how fast the $7.2m (Shs240b) facility clears cargo and facilitates trade and movement across the two border points of Uganda and Tanzania. Already, TradeMark Africa (TMA), one the funders of the Mutukula One Stop Border Post (OSBP), is expecting to see tremendous decline in time spent clearing goods. According to URA commissioner customs Dicksons Kateshumbwa, currently clearance at Mutukula border takes slightly more than one and a half days, in itself an achievement, considering it would take weeks if not months to clear a single consignment. But TMA country manager Allen Asiimwe, thinks the tax body can do more, saying the lesser time spent on navigating laborious custom bureaucracies—clearance, the better the business environment and the lesser the cost of doing business gets, making Uganda and the region attractive for trade and investment. Speaking during the handover of the facility last week in Mutukula, Ms Asiimwe, whose organisation injected $7.2m into the construction of the OSBP, said if time spent on clearing goods at the new facility drops to hours from currently slightly less than one and a half days, the result will be amazing.
When asked by how many hours they are looking at, TMA programme officer Damali Ssali, said: “We would like to see it being done in not more than six hours. This is achievable because we have...

The East African region is likely to face stiff competition from Southern Africa countries after members of three trade blocs that merged last year agreed to disregard sensitive products in order to ensure fair competition. The 26-member states forming the Tripartite Free Trade Area have agreed that 80 per cent of tariff lines will be liberalised upon implementation of the agreement in June and the remaining 20 per cent will be negotiated over five to eight years. TFTA brings together members of the East African Community, the Common Market for Southern and Eastern Africa and the South Africa Development Community. This is a reversal of the earlier agreement of having restrictions on the entry of the sensitive goods until 2017 to allow industries to adjust to the competition expected from cheaper products. This effectively opens the door for stiff competition for EAC goods from South Africa and Egyptian exports. Among the products earlier listed for protection were sugar, maize, cement, wheat, rice, textiles, milk and cream, meslin grain and flour, cane and beet sugar, khangas, kikois, kitenges, second-hand clothes, beverages, spirits, plastics, electronic equipment and paper materials. All these will be subject to duty and quota restrictions. “With an agreement to liberalise up to 80 per cent of the goods to other countries, each country or trading bloc like EAC will agree on what goods to liberalise and which ones not to,” said Mark Ogot, senior assistant director at Kenya’s Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism and a tripartite expert, adding that...

Trademark East Africa has launched six grants worth $2.5 million to fund the private sector. In the past, TMA focused mostly on funding government reforms, but now, deserving players in the private sector will also receive money to invest in storage infrastructure, provision of extension services to farmers, co-operatives, standardisation of products and linking producers with markets. For instance, in Uganda’s Gulu area, where there is mass production of sesame, cassava and maize, a logistics hub with warehouses will be constructed, while the Jinja-Kisumu Corridor will also benefit from a logistics hub to develop transport interconnection of the ferry, railway and road transport services. TMA will also facilitate the establishment of infrastructure to support fishing in Lake Victoria. These efforts are meant to improve the private sector’s capacity to utilise TMA’s investment in infrastructure development over the past six years during which the organisation gave governments in East Africa $340 million to remove trade barriers. Cost of doing business Allen Asiimwe, TMA country manager for Uganda, said that through the investments, EAC partner states have managed to reduce the cost of doing business, however there are concerns over the high cost of consumer goods. According to Ms Asiimwe, TMA’s interventions have reduced the cost of transporting a fuel container from Mombasa to Kampala from $4,000 to $1,750, but this has not resulted in lower pump prices. “Fuel traders blame the depreciating shilling and inflation for the failure to reduce price,” said Ms Asiimwe. TMA business competitiveness senior director Lisa Karanja...

Most of the tea produced in region sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves EAST African tea exports to Iran are expected to jump more than fivefold by 2019 as trade ties with the Persian Gulf nation normalise after western sanctions were lifted, a regional tea traders’ association said. Shipments from nations including Kenya, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea, may climb to 20,000 metric tons within the next four years from a record low of 3,200 tons last year, said Edward Mudibo, managing director of the East African Trade Association. “The potential for the Iran market could be five-fold the current status without the restrictions there had been over the past five years,” Mudibo said in a phone interview Wednesday from the port city of Mombasa. Iran is among the world’s 10 biggest tea-consuming nations, with consumption estimated at 83,400 tons in 2013, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics. Financial and trade sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European countries because of its nuclear program curbed access to foreign currency and limited Iranian buyers’ ability to transact. That posed “payment challenges” to East African tea exporters from Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, Mudibo said. Most of the tea produced in East Africa is sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves. The weekly sale handled 358.6 million kilograms (791 million pounds) in 2015, compared with 390.2 million kilogrammes a year earlier, according to data compiled by Tea Brokers East...

KIGALI, Rwanda - The East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP), the regional tourism body, wants all the five East African member states to embrace inter and intra-regional tourism as something good for the East African Community (EAC).  “EATP is represented by each single stakeholder who is in the room; each one of you is an investor in EAC hence I urge you to collaborate, build bridges and strengthen the vision of EATP of a vibrant and diverse single tourism destination by providing exceptional experiences and products,” Manzi Kayihura, the  Chairman of EATP said recently. This was during an open discussion forum hosted by EATP to discuss on the vision of East Africa as a single tourism destination and the feasibility and viability of it. Participants in the two day forum were CEOs and Executive Directors of Private Sector Tourism Associations in the five East African countries, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Tourism Boards in the East African Community member states were also invited as EATP fosters private/public sector collaboration in matters of tourism in the region.  These stakeholders were brought in as policy makers and influencers, and were gathered in the same room to discuss challenges and opportunities of developing tourism in EAC and promote it as a single destination. EATP challenged the participants to look beyond their differences and challenges at their national levels and rally their strength behind finding solutions to common problems. “Solutions will have to come from all of the five partner states, with a unified...

ARUSHA, TANZANIA - The East African Gender Equality and Development Bill, 2016 sailed through the First Reading in the East African Legislative Assembly last week writes ELISHA MAYALLAH. The object of the Bill is to make provision for gender equality, protection and development in the Community. According to the mover of the Bill, Hon Nancy Abisai, the Partner States undertake in Article 6(d) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC not to discriminate against any person on grounds of gender as one of the cornerstones of good governance. The Bill in addition spells out the principles of democracy, rule of law, accountability, social justice, equal opportunities as well as in the protection of human and people’s rights. The Bill accepts that women and men’s contribution in the integration process is fundamental as are the obligations of Partner States to their commitments under the various instruments and Protocols.  However, emerging threats resulting from HIV and AIDS, globalization and human trafficking of women, men and children  as well as the feminization of poverty and gender based violence could impact negatively on their citizens. The Bill contends that whereas the Partner States have over the years recognized the importance of gender equality and have developed programmes and enacted legislation in this pursuit, these efforts are at different levels and certain differences particular to each Partner State.   As a result, gender initiatives affect women, men and children differently across the EAC. The Bill has been forwarded to the relevant Committee by the...

ARUSHA, TANZANIA - The East African Gender Equality and Development Bill, 2016 sailed through the First Reading in the East African Legislative Assembly last week writes ELISHA MAYALLAH. The object of the Bill is to make provision for gender equality, protection and development in the Community.  According to the mover of the Bill, Hon Nancy Abisai, the Partner States undertake in Article 6(d) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC not to discriminate against any person on grounds of gender as one of the cornerstones of good governance. The Bill in addition spells out the principles of democracy, rule of law, accountability, social justice, equal opportunities as well as in the protection of human and people’s rights. The Bill accepts that women and men’s contribution in the integration process is fundamental as are the obligations of Partner States to their commitments under the various instruments and Protocols. However, emerging threats resulting from HIV and AIDS, globalization and human trafficking of women, men and children  as well as the feminization of poverty and gender based violence could impact negatively on their citizens. The Bill contends that whereas the Partner States have over the years recognized the importance of gender equality and have developed programmes and enacted legislation in this pursuit, these efforts are at different levels and certain differences particular to each Partner State.   As a result, gender initiatives affect women, men and children differently across the EAC. The Bill has been forwarded to the relevant Committee by...