Unrest in Burundi tests implementation of regional single customs territory

Implementation of the single customs territory came to real test when Burundi closed the airport, shutting out all inbound and outbound flights.

Cargo at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi had to held on onward airlifting to Burundi’s capital Bujumbura, where the international airport is situated.

Trucks that were carrying goods to Burundi had to halt their journey given the tense political atmosphere after the attempted coup.

Trade and movement of cargo along the southern and the northern corridor were interrupted with traders counting their losses on storage, turnaround of trucks and short supply of goods to the intended markets.

What came to immediate test was how effective the operation a single customs territory are, especially on the model being agitated by the current implementers. If goods on-transit are entered by the recipient or the importing country like is the case now, allowing the full control and monitoring to be done by the recipient member State, then Kenya as the port of entry will not have the mandate to secure such goods.

The ripple effect would be that the trucks may choose to abandon the cargo mid way, flooding the local market with goods whose origin and standards have not been authenticated, not to mention non tax compliance.

The present model of the implementation of the single customs territory allows foreign member States to bring in their customs staff at the port of entry to verify their transit cargo.

Customs authority

They eventually use their own customs agents to enter the goods in their customs systems, bypassing the oversight role of our customs authority. This is a recipe for confusion should such occurrences be replicated across the region.

What is more dangerous is what would follow. It is scaring to imagine that landlocked countries may use the loophole of entering their own goods and supervision at the port by their own staff to transit dangerous cargo through Kenya and plan for atrocities or fuel chaos in their respective countries.

It will be difficult to ascertain the description and declarations of goods through the port of entry in a container destined to the land locked countries since the same should be supervised by the recipient member country under the present single customs territory implementation model.

We should learn from the occurrence in Burundi to re position ourselves as a country to take full control of all cargo through the port of Mombasa by involving our customs agents. We should enter goods and have our very own customs officers to verify, monitor and supervise the exit of all cargo out of the our territory.

We clearly have a patriotic mandate to secure our country and further take full responsibility of supervising cargo transiting both as imports and exports out of Kenya. Burundi unrest may have been awake up call to act in the wake of the implementation of the single customs territory.

The lacuna created during times of unrest or war for that matter should not be left to foreigners at the expense of the Kenyan people. This goes to all stakeholders in the freight logistics industry at a time when we know that our precarious position as a country is to ensure peace and economic growth within our borders.

-Mr Ojonyo is a Director at Keynote Logistics