It’s 1,200 km from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to the Ugandan capital, Kampala and another 525 to the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. But with a few strokes of the politicians’ pens and some clicks on a mouse, that distance just got dramatically shorter. “It used to take 18 days or more for one of our trucks to get here from Mombasa,” said Kassim Omar, Chairman of the Uganda Clearing Industry and Forwarding Association (UCIFA). “Now the same journey takes four days, sometimes even three.” The reduction is due to the decision at a Northern Corridor infrastructure summit by the Presidents of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda to speed rapidly growing freight along their key trade route and the implementation of a variety of hi-tech systems that have slashed paperwork and time. The combination has stripped away a lot of the bureaucratic red tape that snarled the free flow of trade in the East African Community and contributed to some of the highest transport costs in the world, accounting for up to 40% of the price of goods to consumers. In October 2013, Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya agreed to implement a Single Customs Territory (SCT) between them as members of the East African Community. Tanzania and Burundi, say they followed suit at the Summit in November 2013. At a stroke, the agreement removed multiple weighbridge, police and customs checks along the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali route and introduced computerized clearance and electronic tracking and...

It used to be six or seven trips, eight days traipsing around town and a lot of shoe leather in the clammy lakeside capital of Burundi to complete the paperwork needed to register for a building permit. Now it’s one trip, six flights up in a Finance Ministry building by elevator and a mere 24 hours or less. That’s because of a One-Stop Shop approach Burundi has adopted, an innovation that has made the country of nine million people one of the top 10 economic reformers in the world, according to the World Bank. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) paid tribute to Burundi’s zeal in its annual Doing Business in East Africa report, which made the country the only African state to figure in the league of the world’s top 10 economic reformers. “Burundi is among the top 10 improvers for the second consecutive year, with four regulatory reforms in starting a business, in dealing with construction permits, registering property and trading across borders,” said the IFC report. Only four steps are required to register a business, half the number needed on average by the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. They include submitting all documents, obtaining a registration certificate and registering the company. It also includes making a company seal needed by some banks to issue loans. Although the Government is now proposing to abolish this step, combining the first two so as to remain with only two steps. "The One-Stop Shops are important for Burundi's economy and economic...

World Chambers of Commerce have honored a Tanzanian-designed scheme to use cell phones to identify and help overturn barriers to free trade across East Africa. The scheme won second prize in the World Chambers of Commerce competition for the best project amongst a field of other groundbreaking innovations from Britain, China, the Slovak Republic and Turkey. 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. “Already within East Africa other countries are expressing interest in the system. To get that international recognition for a project designed and driven by the private sector is great,” said Pauline Elago, Country Manager of TradeMark Africa, which backed the scheme. It is the first of its kind in East Africa and is a beacon in the battle against NTBs, regulatory or official hurdles which slow free commerce and add to the cost of transporting goods to the region, which already has the highest transport costs in the world. ““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 is evidence that what we do, as a private sector, in creating favorable business environment adds value to...

It’s the same formula that dating agencies use: bring suitors in search of partners together with partners thinking about suitors. Contrive series of intensive get-togethers and exchanges of information. Sprinkle lightly with expectation and good wishes. Stand back and wait to see what happens. But in this version of the story the suitors are Rwandan companies looking for markets in Uganda. And the Matchmaker is the Rwandan Development Board (RDB) with help from TradeMark Africa (TMA) and the Irish government NGO Traidlinks. Rwanda imports three times as much as it exports. Its private sector, government and backers fear that the country might get economically swamped by the more modernized Partner States like Kenya when all tariff barriers eventually come down in the creation of an economically integrated zone. “Imports don’t make us rich! We have to look at new products and new markets. We need to diversify. We need to look beyond traditional markets. And most of all, we need to think differently,” says Kaliza Karuetwa, Director-General of Trade at the Rwandan Ministry of Commerce. The RDB, Traidlinks and TradeMark Africa (TMA) all wanted to help Rwandan companies think differently and put together an intensive programme for a small group of Rwandan CEOs or top management officials to go to Kampala to try to find customers. Why Uganda? Why not a less economically daunting prospect than its oil-rich neighbour? Why not Burundi, or the Democratic Republic of Congo? “We already do sell to both countries but it’s more re-sale of...

It’s a Friday afternoon at Busia border between Uganda and Kenya. Ugandan immigration staffs are busy clearing travellers when a tall young man marches to the counter and demands an entry stamp in his South Sudanese passport. The immigration officer has a number of queries before he can clear him, and the impatient young man starts getting angry and belligerent. Kenya has cleared his exit and he doesn’t see why the Ugandans should waste his time. The immigration officers enlist the help of police to overpower the young man and escort him back to the Kenyan side. Ugandan and Kenyan officers examine the case, and compare notes and finally give him clearance to travel to Kampala. The Ugandan officer in charge of immigration, Margaret Obong, regrets the amount of time lost on such individual cases when immigration officers of both countries walk across to compare notes and meet with their counterparts. This time-consuming exercise will be dramatically reduced when a One Stop Border Post (OSBP) becomes operational. This innovation is going up in many parts of East Africa to speed human and goods traffic, save time and money, and allows the private sector to generate more money and less paperwork. [caption id="attachment_177" align="alignleft" width="407"] The Uganda-Kenya Busia border can be a contentious place[/caption] With funding from Britain’s development arm DFID, the Dutch, Danish development agency (DANIDA), Sweden development agency (SIDA) and Belgium, TradeMark Africa has helped institute a complete reconfiguration of the border processes including physical construction of the new...

They are as much a feature of Africa’s borders as immigration officials, barbed wire and bureaucracy. They are the service stations of Africa’s highways and the pit stops of commerce from Cape Town to Cairo. They gravitate to the frontiers where trucks stop, truckers break and travelers take on food and water for their journeys. Their shop fronts are brimming baskets and their cash registers are pockets and purses. They are the women traders who make a living by selling wares at Africa’s myriad borders and TradeMark Africa (TMA) is helping them to get organized, to know their rights and to reap the fruits of East African (EA) integration. “As cross border traders we carry the ignition key to transform our communities,” said Hadijja Sserwanga, a champion of the rights of Uganda’s border traders, regional Chairperson of the East African Women Cross Borders Traders Association (EAWCBTA). She describes herself as a politician, activist, teacher and community development worker fighting to overturn the sexual harassment, exploitation and marginalization by the (largely male) people who run and operate EA borders. She’s been a border trader herself since 1987, operating on the Uganda-Tanzania frontier at Mutukula, and has seen and experienced the problems women traders run into by not knowing their rights under EA integration or being bamboozled into paying unnecessary fines, taxes and bribes because they don’t know better. “I have a lot of passion for women’s empowerment and being a cross border trader. I feel we can transform ourselves from being...

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...

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...