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The WCO Assists Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to enhance its capacity to implement the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA)

11 October 2017

On request of the URA and in support of its effective implementation of the TFA, the WCO undertook a scoping mission from 18 to 23 September, 2017 to assess Uganda Customs’ current practice specifically on the trade facilitation measures. The mission included technical conversations with senior Customs officials on strategic planning, AEO, risk management, human resources management and training, Post-clearance-audit and IT application. 

The mission also consulted Uganda’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives and key development partners in the trade facilitation space, and paid a visit to the Mutukula one-stop border post on the Tanzanian – Ugandan frontier.

Overall, since 2006, URA has adopted a strategy to accomplish its mandates of revenue collection, trade facilitation and trade security through the active use of WCO instruments and tools, such as SAFE Framework of Standards, the Risk Management Compendium, the Framework of Practices and Principles on Customs Professionalism and the Leadership and Management Development Programme.  The WCO recognizes several recent developments, such as the launch of the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System and the centralized Customs Document Processing Centre, will be critical in advancing Uganda’s trade facilitation agenda and the WCO’s future support therein.        

The mission provided the opportunity to consolidate several WCO programmes, including the EAC CREATe Programme, along with Uganda’s current TFA-related capacity building needs into a single multi-year development plan.  It will also provide a forward plan for Uganda to demonstrate its successes through engagement with other landlocked development countries.

The WCO experts congratulated Uganda for its recent progress on ratifying the TFA and its notification of category “B and C” commitments after earlier notification of category A in 2015. WCO looks forward to further aligning its support to Uganda national implementation plan.

The WCO experts briefed the Commissioner of Customs, URA of the findings and will submit a draft Mercator strategy in the coming weeks."