Namibia Revenue Agency steps up efforts for competency development on tariff classification

17 May 2023

From 8 to 12 May 2023, the Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) hosted a national workshop on the Harmonized System and commodity classification in Windhoek, Namibia. The workshop was delivered by two experts from the WCO within the framework of the EU-WCO Programme for the Harmonized System in Africa (HS-Africa Programme), funded by the European Union as part of the comprehensive package of assistance to support NamRA’s work on competency development on Harmonized System and classification.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Willbroad S. Poniso, Head of Customs and Excise, highlighted that the aim of this course was that the participants would be adequately introduced and equipped with knowledge and skills to deal with the challenges that they might face at their respective duty stations. Some of these challenges are amongst others: misclassification of goods, non-declaration, non-stopping goods for physical examination and movement of goods either in transit or for warehousing purposes. He wished the participants all the success with the Harmonized System Intermediate Training Course and that they share the acquired knowledge with their colleagues at their respective duty stations to add value to NamRA core mandate of revenue collections.

In line with the strategic guidance on competency development, the participants have successfully undertaken the basic training through the HS Foundation e-learning course via the WCO CLiKC! platform ahead of the workshop.

The workshop was attended by 30 officers from across different Customs Offices of the country and from the headquarters of the NamRA. The objective of this course was to describe the structure of the HS Convention and to learn the basic principles of commodity classification, based on the General Rules for the Interpretation of the HS. Participants examined a wide range of fundamental theoretical and practical aspects of the application of the HS, working on a number of case studies where they classified specific products which presented complexities in classification.

At the end of the workshop, Ms. Jacqueline Gawanas, Senior Manager of Windhoek Head Office, expressed her confidence on the practical benefits acquired by the participants that cover a wide range of topics on tariff classification issues, presented during the workshop.

The workshop is part of an overall package of support under the HS-Africa Programme that has already delivered with the introduction of advance rulings system in Namibia, and shall further support with advanced HS training, Train-the-Trainer and other key modernization and competency development initiatives to enhance tariff classification work model and infrastructure.

For more details, please contact hs@wcoomd.org.