Truckers yearn for it. Some are even prepared to break the rules to get it. But in Uganda actually obeying the rules and signing up for a computerised system has put truckers where they and their cargo want to be - in the fast lane. “Although many business people in Uganda still believe that money is made by cutting corners and doing the wrong thing, you can now make good money by doing the right thing, which is more sustainable,” says Jennifer Mwijukye, founder and MD of Unifreight, a cargo handling company. She is talking about the pilot launch in Uganda of the Authorised Economic Operators (AEO) scheme, which gives approved companies preferential treatment to sail through the Ugandan border all the way to the importers’ premises without being stopped anywhere for Customs checks. The programme, fully funded by TradeMark Africa (TMA), allows authorized companies like Jennifer’s to operate smoothly by clearing merchandise electronically and calculating taxes due, which can be paid at the click of a mouse. “I can tell you today that I am saving at least $300 per container in processing costs, to say nothing of the handling time which has drastically reduced,” she says. Clearing at least two containers a week, she now saves $31,200 a year (78 million Uganda shillings). Time is money, not just for freight companies but also for East Africa’s 140 million consumers who have to help cover the cost of one of the most expensive transport systems in the world. Transport...

South Sudan is barely one year old. But this new state is laying the foundations on which to build a future with a streamlined customs collection system that has increased revenue by more than 1,000 percent in the past six months. “This money will help us build the nation,” says Lt. Col. Emmanuel Goya Simon at the steamy Nimule Border with Uganda, the lifeblood entry point for nearly all of South Sudan’s import-dependent economy. “The revenue will help us in security, health and education. It will help the nation grow and breathe,” says Simon, second-in-command of Customs at Nimule. “We are already well on the way.” Outside huge trucks carrying everything from chewing gum to electric kettles and sugar, park to begin the laborious process of registering with half a dozen authorities, declaring their contents, being inspected and paying duty. “It’s a muddle. All the work is manual now, but not for much longer,” says Eugene Torero, the representative in South Sudan of TradeMark Africa (TMA), a donor-funded organization helping the East African community modernize trade and sow the seeds of new prosperity. Across the East African community TradeMark Africa (TMA) is helping countries accelerate away from ways of doing business and trade that have barely changed in the decades since the independence wave unfurled in the 1960s – paperwork, and lots of it. At Nimule, for example, TradeMark Africa (TMA) is in the process of computerizing form filling so that truckers will be able to sit at a laptop...

There are huge gaps at the border between Uganda and Rwanda. They are not the tortuous hilltop roads smugglers pass to avoid customs officers and police. They are not the holes in the chain-link fencing between the two Partner States. They are the blind spots in the knowledge of ordinary people in how the East African Community (EAC) is changing their lives. But with active support of officials on both sides of the frontier, and the Dutch NGO Microjustice4All and TradeMark Africa’s (TMA) US$ 500,000 backing, those gaps are being filled in. Simon Tumwesigye of the Uganda Revenue Authority comes face to face with the gaps every working day and he is grateful that Microjustice4All is working both sides of the Katuna/Gatuna border to enlighten ordinary people as to their rights and obligations. “Ordinary people believe what their Presidents say on Radio or TV; they say there will be freedom of movement for goods and people thanks to the (East African) Community. So people turn up here expecting to pay nothing in taxes or customs duties at all.” “They have no idea that they have to pay VAT or withholding tax or whatever applies. But thanks to Microjustice4All, we have people on the ground to explain to them, and they do a great job,” he says. It’s a year-long pilot project, for now, to ensure that “people understand how the EAC affects them, especially people who live at the border, the small traders, the border communities who were here long...

Truckers yearn for it. Some are even prepared to break the rules to get it. But in Uganda actually obeying the rules and signing up for a computerised system has put truckers where they and their cargo want to be - in the fast lane. “Although many business people in Uganda still believe that money is made by cutting corners and doing the wrong thing, you can now make good money by doing the right thing, which is more sustainable,” says Jennifer Mwijukye, founder and MD of Unifreight, a cargo handling company. She is talking about the pilot launch in Uganda of the Authorised Economic Operators (AEO) scheme, which gives approved companies preferential treatment to sail through the Ugandan border all the way to the importers’ premises without being stopped anywhere for Customs checks. The programme, fully funded by Trademark East Africa (TMA), allows authorized companies like Jennifer’s to operate smoothly by clearing merchandise electronically and calculating taxes due, which can be paid at the click of a mouse. “I can tell you today that I am saving at least $300 per container in processing costs, to say nothing of the handling time which has drastically reduced,” she says. Clearing at least two containers a week, she now saves $31,200 a year (78 million Uganda shillings). Time is money, not just for freight companies but also for East Africa’s 140 million consumers who have to help cover the cost of one of the most expensive transport systems in the world....

Nairobi – After 10 years of stop-go discussions, three East African states are on the verge of launching a single tourist visa to ease the path of visitors across national borders and make it easier for the tourism industry to offer multi-destination packages. “It’s taken a while. There were concerns about how to split the revenue, about possibly losing money and about screening visitors, but Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya have seen that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages,” said Waturi Matu, coordinator (Kenya) of the East African Tourism Platform. Moves to facilitate tourists across East African Community borders was given fresh impetus in June when the presidents of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda met and agreed to strengthen integration and cooperation to spur the growth of trade. “Rwanda will be in charge of designing the visa, and the plan is to have it launched in January next year with Tanzania and Burundi free to join at any time,” she said. Long a lobbying goal of East Africa’s tourism industry, the single visa will enable a tourist to buy a visa for the three countries for $100 instead of three visas for $150. The savings for couples and couples with children, the main tourism unit, is therefore substantial. “Tourism is a key source of income for the East African Community and we support the East African Tourism Platform precisely so it can lobby to make the borders between members states ‘thinner’ and less bureaucratic,” said Frank Matsaert, CEO of TradeMark Africa. The...

MWEA, Kenya – It’s the end of term school prize-giving day and the atmosphere is expectant and excited. One by one the pupils’ names is announced. They walk out in their best clothes to get their certificates, a handshake and a warm round of applause. It’s a typical scene. Except that these pupils are mostly middle-aged farmers, both men and women, whose livelihoods depend on them putting lessons learned into practice and growing crops according to the standards of the Good Agricultural Practice Code (GAP). “Smallholder farmers hold the solution to hunger and poverty in rural areas,” says Napthaly Kariuki of the Horticultural Produce Marketing Association of Kenya (HPMAK). “To get accepted in international markets, both the European Union (EU) and East African, you need to grow according to the best practice, and that means GAP." There are about 250 certificates awaiting distribution on the desk set up by the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK), which is spearheading the campaign to help farmers across the East African Community (EAC) grow food for tables in EU states and in neighbouring countries. “I am so happy today. I have learned things that will help me make my shamba (smallholding) grow better produce to sell for me and my family. This is like getting a prize at school,” said Grace Wambui, who grows beans and tomatoes nearby. “Growing fresh produce employs about one million people in Kenya, and it’s one of the top three export earners. Smallholders account for about 70...

Fried fish, fried beef, chicken and fried bananas; oils and fats are as much part of East African life as blue skies and rain showers. But until recently, what you bought in Uganda to prepare your matoke with and what you used in Tanzania to fry your fish might have looked the same from the label but have been of vastly differing qualities. And none of East Africa’s 140 million citizens might have been the wiser. But not for much longer, the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat, with support from TradeMark Africa (TMA), met in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura; in March, for a regional technical committee meeting on oil seeds, edible oils and fats sector held to harmonise standards of this key ingredient of the daily diet. “Harmonisation of standards for all sorts of things is one of the building blocks on which to build a strong, integrated East African Community,” said José Maciel, Director of Trade Facilitation (Non-Transport), at TradeMark Africa (TMA). “It’s one of the reasons that the European Economic Community has become the power house that it is. You need to agree on basic standards for goods to create a level playing field on which traders and consumers will both benefit.” The edible fats and oils sector is a part of the larger food and beverage industry that commands a US$ 2 billion East African regional market value and, like the regional economy itself, is fast growing. There is strong demand for oils and fats but not...

They sneak across the border back to Burundi, putting one foot quietly in front of the other on unmarked forest trails and secret tracks. The enemy is the authority. The goal is tax evasion. And the reason is ignorance. These are the women traders of Burundi who risk the wrath of the law to escape paying taxes on the food and small goods they carry in their nylon baskets from Uganda or Rwanda to sell to ready customers in border villages and further afield. It is much the same story across much the East African Community (EAC) – women traders running needless risks because of rumour and misinformation about punitive border taxes, expensive permits and baffling bureaucracy. “Women traders are the ones who face, every day, the problems of not knowing what their rights are in today’s EAC,” said Burundi’s minister for East African Community Affairs Hafsa Mossi. “Most of them haven’t a clue about their rights or their obligations.” With support from TradeMark Africa (TMA) that situation is changing. Partnering with NGOs, the government and the media, the borderline informal sector is learning that much of what they feared held no threat, and that clarity on tax obligations and paperwork can make their lives, and their profits much better. “Women traders are at the front line in disputes with the authorities at the borders,” said Floride Ahintungiye, Programme Director of the International NGO Search for Common Ground (SFCG). “With help from TradeMark Africa (TMA) our staff went to the...

Trader Jeremie Kayobera had his life changed by a radio broadcast. It wasn’t a religious broadcast, or a political one, but a nuts and bolts broadcast about how to take advantage of Burundi’s membership of the East African Community (EAC). Until that December 2011 radio show, he had bought maize flour in Tanzania or Uganda, Burundi’s economically powerful neighbours, imported it, paid his border dues and sold the staple foodstuff in his home country. Why not? It’s a pattern of business repeated across the whole spectrum of Burundi’s trade relationships with its EAC neigbours: buy across the frontier, import, and sell. Every market place in even the smallest community bears witness to this pattern of doing business. That changed overnight. He heard a radio programme explain to him that he could take advantage of start-up help from the government’s API Investment agency; he heard how much or how little he would have to pay in tax to the state’s Office Burundais des Recettes (OBR), the revenue authority. Today he has realized a dream and established his own maize mill in Kanyanza. Goodbye paying taxes on imported foodstuffs. Hello the opportunity to make bigger profits milling from local produce, and to export. “It doesn’t matter where you go in the countryside, you find that people know almost nothing about the benefits of EAC membership or the steps the government is taking to help business compete in the EAC,” says Davy Rubangisha, Programme Manager at the RPA radio, Burundi’s private and biggest...

DAR ES SALAAM – Tanzania has embarked on a major shake of its ports, railway and road networks to handle surging cargo traffic caused by its own economic boom and similar expansions in neighbouring countries. “We’ve set specific timeline targets for every sector, port, road, rail – the lot. And if these targets are not met, then heads will roll, including mine, and I am rather keen to keep it where it is,” Tanzanian Transport Minister, Harrirson Mwakyembe said. The Programme, called Big Results Now, marks a determination by the government and its development partners to modernise its infrastructure to cope with current and projected demand as East African economies grow at rates that would make the United States envious. Tanzania is growing by around eight percent a year and similar rates are being enjoyed by all its East African Community (EAC) partners, driving demand for construction and consumer materials from Dar es Salaam to the shores of Lake Kivu. In contrast to previous plans, the Minister said that targets set by the National Key Result Area (NKRA) of the plan would be regularly scrutinized because “periodic measurement of performance is of critical importance, as is adherence to targets.” This will not be a grandiose five-year-plan to gather dust and be replaced by another. “An efficient transport sector is essential for the sustainable development of any country, so ability to keep track of level performance cannot be over-emphasised,” he said. The plan, built with assistance from donors, including TradeMark Africa,...