Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, the third Working Group activity (WG3) of the Master Trainers Programme (MTP) on Post Clearance Audit (PCA) was held in Arusha, Tanzania on 30 September- 4 October 2019.  The same group of candidates who participated in previous workshops, got together again for this sub-regional activity to work on, and further progress towards, achieving the ultimate objective of the MTP.  

This workshop is the third in a series of progressive activities undertaken by the five Revenue Authorities in East Africa, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, to enhance their capacity on the implementation of PCA under the Trade Facilitation and Border Control Project that is jointly supported by the WCO and JICA.  The Master Trainer Program or MTP is a program that has been implemented under the WCO/JICA Joint Project to develop sustainable training capacity within the Customs administrations by 1) developing a pool of well-experienced trainers and (2) regionally featured training materials and program to be used by these trainers. 

Building upon the first activity (WG1) which focused on the improvement of PCA knowledge/techniques as well as the identification of specific PCA training needs and the second activity (WG2) which focused on the improvement of training skills/competence, eighteen (18) PCA officials (to-be-trainers) started the development of training materials and model program to meet the specific training needs identified during the WG1.  The participants also went through “role play” on PCA to acquire necessary knowledge/techniques and to share their experience on PCA.  Invited experts from the WCO, East African Community (EAC) Secretariat and Japan Customs facilitated various sessions and shared their valuable knowledge and expertise on PCA to improve the understanding of the participants on both the theory and practice to achieve the MTP objective. 

The participants demonstrated their commitment to the MTP and actively participated in working sessions/group discussions organized throughout the workshop.   Both WCO and JICA welcomed their positivity and reaffirmed their continued support to the Customs administrations in East Africa to ensure sustainable capacity development.