Government agencies asked to join single window system arrangement

Trademark East Africa has encouraged more government institutions that are directly dealing with different traders involved in export of products to consider joining the National Electronic Single Window System arrangement so as to cut on the cost of doing business for such traders and increase on the country’s foreign income earning.

According to Frank Matsaert, the Chief Executive Officer of Trademark East Africa, this single window system has demonstrably reduced on the turnaround time especially at the border, enabling traders to increase volumes of their exports.

“There are already 16 (sixteen) government agencies onto the system but we want that to increase to 30 (thirty) so that there much wider range of goods automated to get onto different markets quicker. It is very important to reduce the paper work in trade”, noted Matsaert.

Prior to the introduction of this system, export trade was very cumbersome and as Stephen Magera, the Assistant Commissioner filed services at the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) explains, there was a lot of time being wasted.

“Somebody had to go to different agencies such as UCDA for coffee exporters to get the quality certificate which they would take to URA and attach to other documents as required to begin the export process”, said Magera adding that “in case of any query, one had to again physically drop the documents back to URA. This was costing a lot of time and money”.

The National Electronic Single Window System is an online arrangement that allows traders to electronically submit all required regulatory trade related documents without moving from place to place. The system was adopted to address a number of export trade challenges.

After its introduction early last year, some government institutions immediately came on board like the ministry of agriculture and the Uganda Coffee Development Authority. There have been visible results for stakeholders to delight in. Douglas Nuwagaba is the documents officer at Ugacof, one of the leading coffee exporters in the country who says, “The delays have been cut down and hat has given us room for more coffee to come in. When there is a lot of coffee in stock due to delays associated with documentations, it affects our volumes negatively”.

It is for these impressive results that other government institutions involved with different traders have been encouraged to come on board and be part of the system. By this time, 16 government institutions are on the system among the, the Uganda Revenue Authority, The Uganda Coffee Development Authority, ministry of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries, ministry of energy and mineral development and, the Uganda National Bureau of Standards among others.

Trademark East Africa has been the developing partner behind the success of this system and accordingly, these are willing to increase funding for the same purpose to see better results in enabling cross-border trade. So far, the development partner has injected 8 million US Dollars in this project and more 4million US dollars is expected to be invested in the three years according.