South Sudan has been admitted into the Common Market for Eastern and South Africa (Comesa) member states just few days after the country was also admitted into the East African Community (EAC).
Comesa Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya said South Sudan pushed to join the Comesa Regional Customs Transit Guarantee (RCTG) carnet scheme.
“We are pleased to announce that following the Comesa’s engagement at the highest level, the government of South Sudan has joined the RCTG Scheme,” Ngwenya said at a signing ceremony in Mombasa on Thursday.
The Comesa RCTG carnet scheme is a custom transit regime designed to facilitate movement of goods under the customs seals in the Comesa region to provide the required customs security and guarantee to the transit countries.
Ngwenya said the RCTG carnet scheme has recorded encouraging achievement since commencement of operations in 2012 and member states and stakeholders participating in the scheme are deriving benefits from savings in the cost of cargo transport.
South Sudan wrote to Comesa on April 22, designating Speed Insurance Company as its National Surety and signed an Inter-Surety Agreement.
“On the behalf of Comesa and on my own behalf, I would like to welcome South Sudan to the RCTG Scheme,” said the Comesa top official.
South Sudan Director General for External Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Stephen Matatia said they are happy that they are now part of the Comesa economic regional block.
“We are glad that today we have made it to Comesa RCTG Scheme,” said Matatia. Comesa has 19 countries and South Sudan becomes the twentieth entry.
Other 19 countries are Burundi, Comoros, D.R. Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar,Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Earlier this month, South Sudan was admitted into the EAC, increasing the membership of the common market to six with a population of 162 million people. It joined Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. South Sudan applied for EAC membership soon after gaining its independence in 2011.
At the same time, the COMESA secretary general has urged the member states to set up effective legal framework that fosters data security and encourages investment in Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) and related innovations.
He said investment in ICT would fight diversion of transit cargo through tracking and trafficking of contraband goods in the region.
Ngwenya called for implementation of laws that are aimed at deterring diversion of cargo goods “for example there are laws to ban a company from operating for three years for engaging in cargo diversion and contraband goods.”
Source: Mediamax

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