Trade contributes $16 billion to the Kenyan economy annually -- or more than half of GDP -- and officials say the red tape involved in the manual clearance of goods causes delays and exposes businesses to fraud and corruption.
The World Bank Doing Business 2011 report ranks Kenya at position 98 in the ease of doing business, behind other frontier markets like Mauritius, Rwanda, Ghana and Zambia.
"We are moving trade to the 21st century. The kind of scenario we have now resembles a maze," Alex Kabuga, acting chief executive of Kenya's single window system agency told Reuters.It is total confusion. "The businessman has to deal with a myriad of government organizations separately."
"The National single window project aims to establish an electronic platform, through which importers and exporters will lodge their trade documentation. This platform will distribute these documents to other government agencies that need to clear these imports and exports."
Funded by the World Bank and the government, the platform is expected to go live in January next year, Kabuga said on the sidelines of a an information communication technology conference.
Once the platform is operating, the government aims to cut cargo clearance times at ports to a maximum of three days from 6.7 days and that of goods being moved by road to one hour from two days.
In airfreight where cargo is flown from Europe to Kenya in eight hours but stays at the airport for five days awaiting clearance, Kabuga said the situation could discourage investors.
"It is totally unacceptable. How do you expect to attract investors with that kind of a situation? It can't work," he said, adding the new system will cut the clearance time for air cargo to a maximum of a day.
Kenya is building a second terminal at its main port of Mombasa, also used by its landlocked neighbours, to increase handling capacity.
Rwanda and Tanzania are the other countries in the region setting up the single window system of cargo clearance, Kabuga added.
He said they were working with other trade authorities in the five-nation East African Community common market to ensure the platform's software is compatible throughout the region.
"We want to go regional. We are planning to have a meeting of the single window agencies so these platforms are integrated as opposed to stand alone platforms," Kabuga said.
With a total population of 133.5 million people and a total GDP of $74.5 billion, the common market brings together Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. (Reuters)
