Under the auspices of the WCO-EAC CREATe Project financed by Sweden, AEO peer validation reviews were carried out from 27 August to 11 September 2018 in Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. The visits were undertaken by the EAC Secretariat, the regional AEO experts from the 5 EAC Countries mentioned above together with the Regional Project Manager of the WCO-EAC CREATe Project.
The AEO peer validation reviews (PVR) aimed at assessing the level of harmonization of AEO validation practices within the region, as well as proposing areas of improvement in the validation process in each individual country and within the EAC region. The PVR exercise covered the AEO validation process starting with the process of constituting the validation team, the pre-analysis of the Self-Assessment Form, the field exercise, the analysis of field results and the reporting process. The team visited each of the partner States and observed the local validation team while carrying out the validation exercise with selected applicant companies.
The peer validation visits have concluded that all countries apply the agreed regional AEO Programme and AEO validation procedures and that in average 92% of the regional AEO programme prerequisites are established at national level. The identified areas for improvement at national level will now be considered by the Commissioner-Customs of each Administration before the upcoming EAC Committee on Customs.
For more information about the WCO-EAC CREATe Project, please contact the WCO Capacity Building Directorate, CapacityBuilding@wcoomd.org