Two years ago truck drivers plying the highway from Dar es Salaam through Tanzania could only fume and argue when they ran into bureaucratic roadblocks, which slowed them to a halt. Today they get around those barriers – with their cell phones. A trailblazing scheme developed by the Tanzanian business community allows frustrated operators to report Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) slowing their freight by SMS message and online – and it is working. “Of all the NTBs that have been reported to us, 42%, that’s nearly half, have been resolved,” says Shammi Elbariki, NTB project coordinator at the online system developed by the Tanzanian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA). The award-winning scheme, developed with help from TradeMark Africa, has attracted attention from the transport industry across the region as it struggles to overturn NTBs inherited from the days before the East African Community (EAC) project was launched. “Uganda has already asked about the technology used so that it can devise a similar scheme, and there is similar interest across the EAC because NTBs are an EAC-wide problem,” says Josaphat Kweka, TradeMark Africa (TMA) Country Director, Tanzania. EAC member governments are committed to abolishing NTBs eventually to create a seamless single market that will spur trade and prosperity and TradeMark Africa (TMA) has helped create National Monitoring Committees (NMCs) in every state to accelerate the process. Under the TCCIA scheme, transport operators, freight forwarders and clearing agents are trained how to report NTBs both online and through SMS and...

Rwanda’s small trucking industry hasn’t had much to shout about recently, unless it was to complain about interminable roadside delays due to bureaucracy, corruption and paperwork. Until now. Some neat diplomatic footwork with neighbouring Tanzania has given Rwandan truckers some good news in an industry where time is money, costs are high, and margins small and the playing field tilted towards the regional giants and their huge trucking sectors. “Yes, some good news for a change,” says Theodore Murenzi, head of the Rwanda Truckers Association. “Tanzania has dropped a road toll which penalized Rwandan trucks on the central corridor. It’s not 100% good news, but it’s a real start.” A study into the competitiveness of Rwanda’s road freight industry highlighted what Rwandan truckers had long complained about – Tanzania charged Rwandan trucks a $500 transit toll yet Rwanda charged Tanzanian registered trucks only $152, putting Rwanda’s drivers at a $348 disadvantage every return trip and adding to already high costs. Such bureaucratic hurdles to free trade are known as Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs). The EAC is committed to eliminating them altogether, but the process is laborious and the barriers cemented in protectionism. “We registered this as an NTB at the level of the EAC, but the harmonization of the road toll at EAC level is not decided,” says Vincent Safari, head of the National Monitoring Committee on NTBs. “But the study was evidence-based, factual and detailed and we were confident it would succeed, somehow.” After validation of the findings of...

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...

Few parts of the world have pioneered the cell phone with such ingenuity as East Africa. You can pay bills with it, check crop weather with it and, when you’re not checking your bank balance, talk to your auntie in Kisangani or Kigali or Kericho. But now, for the first time in East Africa, the humble cell phone is being used as a beacon to champion free, smoother and cheaper trade across the region by naming and shaming unnecessary or duplicated barriers to the free movement of goods. The short messaging system (SMS) online non-tariff barrier (NTB) reporting and monitoring mechanism, was developed by the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) to get the business community not just to grumble about NTBs but to log them, report them and get them referred to those with the power to overturn them. Such is the beauty of the system that it has been nominated for the award of Best Project of the Year by the International Chambers of Commerce and World Chambers Federation, a grouping of senior business, trade and commerce experts. “It is a great pleasure to see that the in house innovation can stretch its wings to the international community. The recognition that the NTBs SMS and online reporting and monitoring system has received through its nomination in the finals, is an evidence that what we do as a private sector in creating favorable business environment adds value to the lives of people; not only because the world...