The East Africa Community (EAC) member states are set to integrate all their custom systems into one platform in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda to enhance regional bond for goods in transit as well as fast-track movement of goods under customs seals and allow transparency on customs operations.

This was said during a regional meeting in Nairobi that discussed the implementation of the EAC Single Customs Territory (SCT) projects.

The meeting comes ahead of the forthcoming 11th Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit, to be held in Nairobi. 

The one day meeting brought together the Commissioners General of Revenue Authorities from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss cargo clearance time and costs.

The Commissioners also discussed the implementation of the Warehousing Regime, Integration of Regional Customs Transit Guarantee (RCTG) and Customs Systems and Reintroduction of Export Declaration by Kenya.

KRA’s Commissioner General, John Njiraini said the meeting addressed ways to reduce the cost of doing business and enhancing compliance.

“The Revenue Authorities met to discuss the implementation of the East Africa Community, Single Customs Territory projects that will ensure faster clearance of goods at the first point of entry within East Africa and cut time and resources used by various governments to collect customs tax at various borders,” said KRA’s Commissioner General, John Njiraini.

Currently Kenya’s Revenue Authority (KRA) uses Simba System, Tanzania uses Tanzania Customs Information System (TANCIS) while Uganda and Rwanda use Asycuda World.

Mr. Njirani also pointed out that KRA had implemented a Customs Reform and Modernisation programme that aims at enhancing performance of the Simba System that is used to process customs documents. KRA’s Simba System has been at the centre of customs modernisation and has enabled the automation of 90 per cent of Customs operations.

The regional revenue authorities are working towards strengthening the single customs initiatives, upgrading customs systems and are working towards adopting a single window.