Efficiency at EA border posts to improve by 30 per cent

Arusha. Efficiency at the border posts within East Africa will improve by between 30 to 40 per cent once the One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) are fully operationalized.

The jointly operated, shared facility, will significantly alter the way the business is conducted at the borders of the East African Community (EAC) partner states through the promotion of cross - border trade and fast clearance of goods.

"The OSBPs also aim to improve on enforcement efficiency through cooperation, sharing intelligence and better resource mobilization. By working side-by-side, cooperation is enhanced and communication made easier", said Alfred Kitolo, the director of Productive and Services Sector in the Kenyan State Department of EAC integration.

Opening the training of 30 officers who will manage the shared facility and stakeholders at the Lunga Lunga/Horohoro OSBP between Tanzania and Kenya late last week, the Kenyan official affirmed;

According to him, the joint border operations, would held in combatting fraud by enabling easier and faster clearance of goods on the basis of a single customs declaration "thereby preventing the substitution of one set of documents with another".

Officials undergoing the training are from all the state agencies handling border operations such as customs clearance, Immigration and phyto-sanitary inspections and other players.

Others are from the police, wildlife service, and directorate of criminal investigations, intelligence services, fisheries, agriculture and livestock, clearing agencies, port and bureaus of standards from the two countries.

Mr Stephen Analo, the Customs Training Expert at the EAC Secretariat said that the training targets 450 Customs Officers and cross border stakeholders.

The OSBP training programme will be effected over a period of nine months stretching from October 2017 to June 2018.

Mr Analo said that the EAC Secretariat has since 2016 been involved in the development of a harmonized training tool for the OSBPs.

The EAC regional training curriculum on OSBPs is the result of joint efforts between the Secretariat, Partner States and Development Partners, namely GIZ, TradeMark East Africa, International Organization for Migration and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

One of the border posts already operationalized is the Holili/Taveta where the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) had projected its revenue collections would surpass the target given the rising cargo passing the border after the paving of the road connecting it with the Mombasa port.