Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta flanked by Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has launched the Kenya Electronic Single Window System, Kenya Tradenet, geared towards facilitating international trade by lowering costs and reducing delays occasioned by clearance of goods at Kenyan borders.
The new system seeks to maintain the needed requisite controls as well as collection of taxes, fees duties and levies whenever needed in cross-border transactions.
It is projected it will only take only three days for cargo to be cleared at the port of Mombasa and one day at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, while cargo dwell time for goods on transits and intra-regional trade consignments will be reduced to one hour with the system.
Kenya Tradenet, which will also introduce paperless transactions, will be owned, implemented and managed by parastatal the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade).
Kenyatta said: “The realisation of this important initiative will undoubtedly go a long way in transforming the way we conduct international trade transactions, not only in Kenya but also in the wider East African region.”
If the Kenya National Electronic Single Window System is implemented to the letter, Kenyatta believes the country will be able to save between US$150 million and US$250 million per annum in the first three years, and between US$300 million and US$450 million per annum afterwards based on improved services.
Kenyatta also said the government was in the process of having a payment gateway for citizens to channel their payments to government electronically.
“This gateway will integrate with the Single Window platform to facilitate an end-to-end electronic solution to business logistics in Kenya, in this regard, it will be imperative to automate the business processes of other key government agencies to share information electronically,” he said.
In East Africa, only Rwanda has implemented the Single Window System, though Tanzania and Uganda are also on track, and Kenyatta said the remaining task is for the East African Affairs cabinet secretaries and ministers to work with the treasuries in their respective countries so that the region can move forward on this together.
Kenyatta also called for collaboration among partner states so as to achieve the implementation of an East African Regional Single Window Platform, that will ultimately integrate the National Single Window Systems in East Africa and partner states.
