“Trade is the best cure for prejudice. It is an almost general rule that, wherever there is good citizenship, there is trade, and that, wherever there is trade, there is good citizenship.” – French philosopher Montesquieu. VENTURES AFRICA – Philosophically, it could be argued that nations are endowed with different sets of natural resources for the sole purpose of facilitating trade and exchange – if every nation had the exact same resource profile, there’d be no need for any form of exchange. Beyond philosophy, however, the case for boosting global trading has never been louder with the recent growth slowdown in the global economy. A series of analyses from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has a long history of advocating for more criss-crossing of goods and services, suggest that trading does more than just provide money for nations, it triggers a virtuous cycle that spikes growth and innovation, while reducing poverty. “If you care about growth and innovation; if you care about jobs and the real incomes of the middle-class; if you care about poverty reduction and greater economic fairness; if you do care about all these things, you need to be serious about fostering global trade,” advocates Christine Largarde, the IMF’s Managing Director. Africa has witnessed impressive economic growth in the last decade—fuelled by increased foreign investment inflow and better commodities trading—but a slowdown in the transfer of goods poses a number of setbacks. Africa is expected to suffer a shrunken portfolio of investment inflows should the slowdown...

THE government, through Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), has planned to strengthen the revenue collection management on the Airtime Monitoring System and to keep insisting on the use of Electronic Fiscal Devises (EFDs) among business people, as a way of expanding the revenue base for the financial year 2015/16. Other strategies are to improve the voluntary tax payment by international companies, expansion of the tax base for the informal sector as well as to reduce tax exemptions. The Finance Minister, Ms SAADA Mkuya Salum, told the Parliamentary Budget Committee in Dar es Salaam that the strategies seek to increase the domestic revenues from sources. She said in the financial year 2014/15 TRA was required to collect 11,318,221.9m/- which was a 20.6 per cent addition to the total revenue collected in 2013/2014. About 203,821m/- was expected to be collected as a result of the amended tax system through the Finance Act of 2014, and the tax collected was also expected to contribute for 93 per cent of the domestic revenue. And the remaining seven per cent is expected to come from Local government collection. According to the report that she presented to the committee, the government has also planned to improve revenues especially in customs taxes by using the Tanzania Customs Integrated System (TANCIS). The system is built on hitech principles with a view to increasing effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and reliability in the Customs administration. “Among the strategies, TRA also included close monitoring of cargo that has also been estimated, improve the...

The Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) stakeholders committee has urged public and private institutions serving the country’s dry ports to increase efficiency so as to make Dar es Salaam port competitive. Its acting chairman, Hebel Mhanga, said in the city last weekend that the port will be modern and competitive if dry ports service providers employ more staff and work longer. “Some dry ports fail to meet their targets simply because of the absence of some institutions in all 17 dry ports,” he noted. Reading some resolutions of the committee’s meeting, he mentioned some of the institutions as the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), Tanzania Weights and Measures, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives as well as the Tanzania International Container Terminal (TICTS). He said should that be implemented, it will help fast clearance of cargo to conform with the working speed of the port which now operates for 24 hours. For his part, the managing director of Jefan Logistics Tanzania Ltd, Luca Neghesti, called on all stakeholders of the port to work hard to realise the Big Results Now (BRN) policy, adding: “All stakeholders need to make sure that they render the best services.” The operations manager of Tanzania Road Haulage (1980) Ltd, Ali Hussein Lilani, stressed the need for stakeholders to work together. He said this would make them realise the objective of making Dar es Salaam the preferred port for imports and exports in the region. Apart from being strategic for Tanzania, the port also serves serves...

TANZANIA Ports Authority (TPA) stakeholders have urged public and private institutions serving the country’s dry ports to increase efficiency in a bid to make Dar es Salaam port more competitive. The Acting Chairperson of the Committee, Mr Hebel Mhanga, said over the weekend in Dar es Salaam that the port will be modern and competitive if dry ports’ service providers will increase staff and adopt longer working hours. “Some dry ports fail to meet their objectives simply because of the absence of some of institutions in all 17 dry ports,” he noted. Reading some of the committee’s meeting resolutions, he mentioned some of those institutions as Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), Tanzania Weight and Measures, Ministry of Agriculture and Tanzania International Container Terminal Ltd (TICTS). He noted that should that be implemented, it will help speedy clearing of cargo and conforming to a working speed of the port which now operates for 24 hours. Managing Director of Jefan Logistics Tanzania Ltd, Mr Luca Neghesti noted that all port’s stakeholders ought to work hard and realise Big Results Now (BRN) plan. “All stakeholders need to make sure that services improve to the best,” he added. Operations Manager, Tanzania Road Haulage (1980) Ltd, Mr Ali Hussein Lilani stressed a need to work together among stakeholders to realise a bigger picture of making Tanzania a preferred port for imports and exports in the region. Apart from being strategic for Tanzania, the port also serves a number of neighbouring countries. Dar port serves seven...

Plans to initiate a $20 million private sector fund to finance specific integration-related activities are simply the latest in a long series of collaborative ventures between public institutions and private firms. Each of the East African partner states long discovered the value of such partnerships, nurturing them with varying degrees of success. The specific form that the partnership takes has differed from one sector to another and between countries. In education, for instance, private institutions have existed alongside public ones, relieving the pressure on public educational institutions. Private companies have also participated in offering scholarships, sponsoring professorial chairs, providing internships for university students, and other collaborative ventures. In infrastructure, too, partnerships with private companies have led to construction of facilities that would otherwise have been unaffordable using public resources. Generally, some method is agreed upon for the private sector to recover its funds and make a reasonable return, say through the Build, Operate and Transfer model in which the private company would operate a new facility for an agreed period of time. At the regional level, the East African Community has benefitted immensely from co-operation with the business community led by their apex organization, the East African Business Council. Indeed, most regional integration initiatives are geared toward improving the business environment, hence the significant involvement of the private sector. It is upon this foundation of goodwill and existing public-private initiatives that the EAC hopes to build a stronger partnership with the private sector. While the details are not yet public...

KAMPALA,Uganda - Civil society Organisations in Uganda have asked the Ministry of Finance not to amend the Tax Revenue Measures under the Value Added tax amendment Bill 2015 which will see Government exempting Mining companies to pay VAT. The activists also want the Ministry of finance to increase the proposed levy operator’s license fee on bodaboda from the proposed UGX30, 000shillings or USD$6.7dollars by Government to UGX200, 000 Shillings or USD$ 67dollars They said this will enable Uganda Revenue Authority to collect more revenue to finance Government proposed activities in the financial year 2015/2016 and also stream line the industry Business. The Activists under their advocacy group civil society Budget Advocacy Group(CSBAG) told Journalist in Kampala that the proposal to amend section 24 and 25 of the principle of VAT Act is risky and likely to be abused by the Mining Companies and sets a bad precedent for other sectors. “We had the Minister of Finance planning and Economic Development presenting tax revenue measures for th e financial year 2015/2016 to parliament among the proposed tax measure is the exempting of VAT Payment by the Mining Companies. AS civil society we strongly challenge this because it will lead to revenue loss and also lead to other sector to demand the same privileges VAT principles should not be applied selectively” Explained Ms Nelly Busingye Mugisha the programme Office at SEATIN Uganda on behalf of CSBAG during the briefing. In the financial year 2015/2016 Government granted Value Added Tax exemption for companies...

EAST Africa is witnessing a flourishing trade, thanks to heavy investments in trade infrastructure and dismantling of bureaucratic and procedural barriers to economic integration, according to TradeMark Africa. TMA said during the launch of their 2013/14 annual report in Dar es Salaam last week that investments in trade infrastructure as well as the dismantling of bureaucratic and procedural barriers to economic integration were positioning the EAC region as the destination of choice for doing business. It said that encouraging results achieved over the past year, including investments at key ports have resulted in reduced cargo transit times on East Africa’s main transport corridors, and accelerated implementation of the EAC’s Single Customs Territory. The donor funded organisation said harmonisation of product standards had also expanded the East African Community trade basket. The Annual Report details TMA’s vision of enhancing integration in the region through trade and highlighted successful projects which include modernisation and expansion of East Africa’s two main ports of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. At the Dar es Salaam port, TMA partners with the World Bank and UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) to support a 596 million US dollar grand project to modernise and expand the port with a view to improve operational efficiency. The project, titled Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project, is billed to improve the physical capacity of infrastructure and operational efficiency at the port by demolishing sheds 2 and 3 of the port. The demolition work began last month. In addition, roads leading to...

A declaration by President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi that he would run for a third presidential term in next month's elections despite a two-term limitation imposed by the country's constitution threatens to plunge the small land-locked nation into anarchy. Burundians opposed to Mr Nkurunziza running for a third term have taken to the streets of Bujumbura in protest. Seven people have died from the clashes with security officers. The government's reaction to the protests has been to shut down social media, the country's independent media and to declare all demonstrators criminals, terrorists and enemies of the state. Yet what is galling most is the collective silence from Mr Nkurunziza's peers in the East African Community. Of course little would be expected from most of them: not from Uganda's Yoweri Museveni who has twice tinkered with the constitution to extend his term limit; not from Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete presiding over a hotly contested transitional election; not from Burundi's northern neighbour Rwanda whose President Paul Kagame seems keen on a term extension. It therefore falls on President Uhuru Kenyatta to speak up against what obviously is an attempt to halt the march of democracy in the region. Predictably, the incumbent could be tempted to exploit the line that he needs to stay on to hold the country of two tribes (Hutu and Tutsi) together. That doesn't wash any more. A former Belgian colony, Burundi has been under the spell of a civil war for most of its independence history. The election of...

FINALLY, the One Stop Border Post at Holili on the country's border with Kenya in Rombo, District, Kilimanjaro Region begins operations mid this month in a new development set to drastically cut on delays in transit cargo clearance at the border. The TradeMark Africa Country Director, Dr Josephat Kweka, said in Dar es Salaam last week that the Holili OSBP would begin operations on May 18, on pilot basis after Tanzania and Kenya signed bilateral agreement to guide operations of the project. The US$5.7 million stateof- the-art structure has been set up by Trademark East Africa at Holili on the Tanzania's side of the border with Kenya to facilitate implementation of the integrated border management systems at Holili and Taveta border posts. TMA has constructed another US$ 6.7 million infrastructure at the Taveta border post on the Kenyan side for the purpose. Under the project activities of both countries' border organisations and agencies are combined at either a single common location or at a single location in either direction without increasing risk to public safety or revenue collection. The idea is to improve efficiency by reducing the total average time it takes to clear cargo at the two border posts by 30 per cent which will contribute to reducing transport costs and increase intra-regional and foreign trade in East Africa. Tanzania and Kenya had opted for a bilateral agreement instead of a OSBP legislation passed by the East African Legislative Assembly in 2013 to speed up implementation of the project....

Kenya risks losing track of the movement of goods and massive clearance levies if the new multibillion-shilling integrated customs management system, which is in the process of being awarded by the Kenya Revenue Authority, is not aligned with the regional codification practices which are fully supported by dependent customs management systems. All the East African Community countries, except Kenya, are already using the Automated System for Customs Data, which predisposes Kenya to implement a system that can seamlessly interface with Asycuda to fully monitor movement of goods and cross border transactions. "The government has already sought bids for the provision of an automated customs management system from interested suppliers. It has forecasted 2015 as the year when the new system will be piloted. Although the change to an integrated custom management system would be costly to the government, the benefits derived from the EAC integration will supersede the expenses and eventually be worthwhile for both the government and individual traders," a report, Tax Matters, by Pricewater House Coopers released in June last year says. With the current single customs territory, Asycuda users from Uganda and Rwanda are clearing goods before their arrival in Mombasa. Other EAC revenue authorities monitor the arrival of goods from Mombasa using the transit facility of Asycuda up to their border with Kenya. Nonetheless, transit of goods across Kenya is very well-monitored, but by other EAC revenue authorities. What the Kenya Revenue Authority needs is a system which is able to exchange customs declaration information with...