The Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) is set to unveil its KSh12 million (US$140,000) online trading portal, a new paperless system aimed at reducing turnaround times in processing certifications and other trading documents.
According to The People Daily, the site has been on a five month trial and is now ready to take on the full scale of networking farmers and buyers.
“Our offices have been untidy with papers lying all over, the most untidy being Mombasa,” said TBK managing director Sicily Kariuki in an interview with The People. “You can imagine the number of growers we register every moment and records of tea production we have been keeping.”
TBK has over one million clients, connecting 106 factories in Kenya.
The site will also host an updated list of growers for authentication purposes. “Currently, it’s hard to authenticate export documents whether they are from a supplier who is registered or not,” said Kariuki.
The site is expected to be launched in early May.
