Transcript Document

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TTFA
 Is a cooperation among Stakeholders and
Governments of Burundi, DRC, Rwanda,
Tanzania and Uganda.
 It is a legal institutional framework to enshrine
the cooperation through a legal Agreement.
 The TTFA Agreement was signed by MemberStates on 2nd September 2006.
 THE Agreement underlines the modalities of this
cooperation.
 The scope of TTFA activities cover the corridor
transport and logistics systems.
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THE CENTRAL CORRIDOR REGION
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Governing Organs of the TTFA
 The Council of Ministers of the Member Countries
 The Executive Board comprising of 5 Permanent Secretaries
and 5 Representatives from the Private Sector.
 Stakeholders Consultative Committee (STACON)
 Stakeholders Representative Group (STAREP)
 Permanent Secretariat.
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MAIN PROTOCOLS
The main issues for cooperation covered in the
Agreement are:1. Maritime Port facilities
2. Customs Control
3. Documentation and Procedures
4. Transport
5. Transit Operations
6. Rates, Charges and Payment Arrangements
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General Trade Facilitation
Issues
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Monitor handling and movement of transit traffic
Investigate performance of the transit traffic
Propose strategies for improvement
Coordination of stakeholders involved in the handling
of transit traffic.
 The TTFA has a Regional Stakeholder Consultative
Committee and National Stakeholder Committees
in each Member State.
 Stakeholder Committees provide information on the
performance of the Corridor.
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The Story of Clotilda
 This is a story of a Lady entrepreneur from Tanzania.
 She has been operating as Clearing and Forwarding
Agent for more than 20 years now.
 As her business grew from an agent of one small trader to
large exporters and importers, complaints from her
customers started as her service delivery became
unreliable, sometimes with excessive delays leading to
heavy costs to the importers.
 On examination of her service she came to the conclusion
that the rail which was her major transport supplier could
was underperforming hence could not supply her with
adequate capacity to convey her customers goods in time,
she feared she was going to these precious customers.
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Clotilda (continues)
 She decided she must solve the problem, there is nothing
impossible. She came to a decision that although not
common in her part of the world and that she was a lady.
she was going to venture and buy her own railway
capacity, i.e locomotives and wagons. After about 4 years
of negotiations and endurance she managed to get
approval for purchase of 100 wagons to which she started
with 20.
 Question; did she succeed? Initially she enjoyed the new
invention in Africa, if not the world but sooner the railways
lacked locomotives. Wagon utilisation started to reduce
while cargo was piling and transport and logistics costs to
the importer increased. So her problems did not go away
completely. Should she get her own locomotives, no the
Railways was being concessionerd as a way of improving
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transport for trade facilitation.
Clotilda (continues)
 After concessioning troubles did not go away in fact they
increased, the Agreement needed to be improved to
ensure higher productivity from the Concessionaire.
 The Govt is handling that, but lack of capacity in the
railways leads to phenomenal costs and affects trade
facilitation.
 Solution: Get assistance with better conditions to purchase
more equipment; a study to determine the conditions and
effectiveness of open access in the railways would help to
increase capacity in shorter time than to wait for
concessionaire to deal alone.
 For Clotilda business had to continue, but still encountered
more problems. Now that the business community has
heeded to the call for SME entrepreneurship, more and
more came on line. Unfortunately, every one wanted to 9
Poor/wrong document declaration!
 The speed did not allow them to study systems and
procedures clearly, so Clotilda found more and more of her
customers were increasing her tension. Every month she
would find that her 3 to 4 of her customers have not
correctly prepared their import documents , bill of lading
etc. For example, instead of endorsing the actual
consignee the importer quoted the Clearing and
forwarding Agent as the consignee. That calls for
documentation alteration. Although Customs, shipping line
agent and Port Operator takes two weeks or more , on
two recent occasions it 2 months to get the customs
release. It is common that much longer time is taken than
the container free holding time resulting in heavy container
demurrage and storage costs. Solution: Get assistance to
conduct Sensitization seminars to importers in the region,
because when asked to pay these heavy claims many just
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Documentation (continues)
 At times she requested other C&F Agents to assist when
traffic volume increased it was found that many of the
former were not conversant with the customs rules and
regulations so could not advise client correctly . Result
delays and penalties.
 Many occasions occur when Shipping line report that her
client’s containers were short landed –e.g. instead of 6 as
on the bill of lading – 4 had landed. Going through the
process of getting a short landed certificate and this took 2
weeks. However , more often the Shipping Line fail to give
correct information or delays arrival information leading to
additional days and costs.
 There is need for capacity building Assistance to train the
service providers on the import procedures as well as
sensitize them on the impact of their performance. A
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training with more focussed and practical approach
 is required to improve handling of documentation. With
70% of documents currently rejected impact of training
should see these numbers reduce.
 Ms Clotilda presented her observations to the Corridor for
assistance. She sounded that Lack of coordination of the
industry results in formulation of rules and regulations
which impact each other and add costs to the
importer/exporter.
 On consideration that is an accepted challenge. While the
latter is the business of the Corridor, getting in sight of
some of the best practices will help the corridor
management to be more clearer and more persuasive in
harmonising the key players of the industry. Assistance is
requested in terms of TA and or Study Tours.
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Transport Capacity problems.
 With average dwell time of 30 days for transit traffic there is
no doubt that the corridor has serious transportation
capacity problems. There is need for the Corridor to
examine to the exact reasons for low investment in trucks.
As although the truck mode is more costly, availability of
trucks is critical to port operations in early off take of
goods..
 Infrastructure and equipment is in bad shape in both the
Railways and the road.
 The Corridor management request s assistance to
establish this fact so that correct measures can be taken.
 The call is to support the corridor to take action and
coordinate the service providers.
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Other Challenges Faced and How Addressed
Challenges:
1.Data Collection: Regional Stakeholders consultations cannot be held as
frequently as preferred .
2.To reduce border delays and regulatory checks along the highway in
order to create a faster turn around of trucks along transit routes
3.Documentation: Computerization of documentation and an electronic
interface between port users and port operators.
4.Many of the processes in the clearance process appear to happen
consecutively as opposed to simultaneously.
5.Conflicting Regulations: To remove bureaucracy and checks in the
release of containers by shipping lines impacted by debts on demurrage,
deposit collection and refunds.
6.Capacity constraints in cargo off take capabilities of the railways, as well
as on the Lake Victoria.
7.Capacity constraints at Dar Port due to high container dwell times.
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Measures being taken:
1. Efforts are underway to strengthen the National Stakeholders
Committees so as to handle fully issues of trade facilitation in
logistics and transport. The Port Decongestion Committee
formed with the Govt has enabled realisation of the need to
work together in the industry to co-ordinate efforts with a view
to coordinate the service providers.
2. Regular workshops help to establish the changes needed and
agreed, later followed up by a Special Sub- Committee to
follow up implementation of agreed issues of which TTFA is
the Secretary. All issues agreed are allocated responsible
institution (with lead institution if many) and timeline.
3. In the same manner as above, follow-up with the Governments
on issues of inter-state like border posts.
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Measures (contd--)
 Support form SSATP for baseline survey and eventual
setting up of the Observatory will improve data collection
along the corridor. Currently Collection of data on container
dwell times from the Container Terminal and ICDs.
 Construction of Inland Clearance Depots in Dar and
revival of the Mbeya and Isaka Dry Ports to augment
container storage capacity.
 Installation of Asycuda ++ at border posts partially reduces
delays to traffic as well as reducing costs to the operators
for example in areas of bond cancellation. To be completed
on Central Corridor Routes by 15th March 2009.
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Conclusion:
1. Shipping Agents/ lines to be sensitized to harmonize their
operations in container interchange points as done in other
corridors.
2. Goverments to expedite investments and improvements in the
railways.
3. To finalise the legal and operational framework of the
National Stakeholders Committees so as to bring about the
required coordination and cooperation among the
stakeholders.
4. Assistance to develop one stop border post between Tanzania
and Uganda; Tz and Rwanda; Tz and Burundi.
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6.
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION.
Ahsante sana.
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