The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is targeting to have an Electronic Single Window System by end of this year, despite numerous challenges at country level.
This could end a near seven-year wait for the platform, aimed at improving the ease of doing business and enhancing intra-regional trade.
The Electronic Single Window System (eSW) was mooted during a COMESA Council of Ministers meeting in 2017, which resolved that member states should adopt a harmonised and standard data connectivity platform.
A single window system, similar to the Kenya National Electronic Single Window System by the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade), serves as a single-entry point for parties involved in international trade and transport logistics.
It allows lodging of documents electronically for processing, approvals and to make payments electronically for fees and levies to respective governments on goods imported or exported in the country.
Trade procedures will be completed at the national level via interactions between traders, border control agencies and the member state national single window systems, which will be interfaced with the COMESA platform.
In some cases, based on the trade document being prepared, systems provided by COMESA, for example electronic Certificate of Origin may also be accessed as part of national trade facilitation procedures.
So far, 14 of the 21 member states have or are implementing national single window systems.
These include Burundi, Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The Kenya Electronic Single Window System has been operational since October 2013.
Lack of government support in some countries, resistance to change, complicated procedures and document requirements, laws and legal challenges, budget and human resource constraints and security issues have been sited as among factors slowing down the process.
COMESA had earlier set 2019 for a fully functioning system.
“The process has been slow, setting and integrating systems is complex,” COMESA trade and customs director Christopher Onyango told journalists in Nairobi yesterday.
He however was optimistic that by close of the year there will be sufficient number of countries for the system to kickoff
Onyango spoke on the sideline of the second meeting of the COMESA Technical Working Group on the implementation of the COMESA Electronic Single Window (TWG-ESW).
It brings together electronic single window IT experts, legal experts from member states, and cooperating partners including United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and UNECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa).
The first meeting was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July last year.
The Nairobi meeting will consider the Revised Draft Regulations for the implementation of the system.
It will also receive country status reports on the implementation of respective National Single Window and consider the draft terms of reference to engage a consultancy firm to assist in developing and implementing COMSW.
Benefits to traders include reduced time in processing of documentation, cost savings, shorter cargo dwell time, predictability of procedures, robust legal framework, and reduce reliance on paper documents.
It will also help governments increase revenue collections.
“By providing a one-stop platform, the system enables business persons, traders to provide information for various official agencies through one single point of entry to fulfil all import-export, and transit-related regulatory requirements,” Onyango noted.
In Kenya for instance, the National Single Window System offers convenience to traders through paperless application for permits on a 24 hours-7 days a week basis and security in terms of the processes of payments for traders.
It has helped improve the business climate with the simplification of 53 trade procedures; removal of 66 requirements documents, elimination 45 steps and automation of 21 steps that were previously manual.
According to KenTrade, the annual value of trade documents processed through the NESWS rose by 242 per cent from Sh221 billion in 2021-2022. to Sh756 billion in 2022-2023.
Over 4.3 million Unique Consignment References and 16,517 Shipping Line Impending Arrival Report notifications have been processed since 2014, with more than 4.5 million permits issued.
The system is said to have helped increased revenue yield by Sh3.44 billion with a reduction in cargo clearance documentation approval time from an average of 12 days in 2013 to two days, resulting in savings along the supply chain of an estimated Sh2 billion per year.
“Kenya supports the regional connectivity and trade facilitation initiatives towards achieving the regional economic integration agenda,” Trade PS Alfred K'Ombudo said.
