The World Customs Organization (WCO) attended a regional Time Release Study (TRS) Workshop organized by the East African Community (EAC) in Kigali, Rwanda, from 6 to 10 October 2014. The Workshop started on 28 September 2014 with the aim of analysing data collected from 16 June 2014 to 10 July 2014 in the central transit corridor for goods cleared and transported from the Port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Bujumbura, Burundi, via the Kabanga/Kobero border, and to Kigali, Rwanda, via Rusumo, respectively. The analysis also covered the data collected on goods cleared and transported from Bujumbura and Kigali for export from the Port of Dar es Salaam. The central corridor from Dar es Salaam to Bujumbura via Kabanga/Kobero is around 1,562.5 km, and from Dar es Salaam to Kigali via Rusumo around 1,475.2 km. At the end of the analysis the working group, comprising participants from the Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda Customs administrations, and the Dar es Salaam port authority, drew up a draft final report on the study which is to be submitted for validation by the different stakeholders before being officially presented to the EAC high authorities. The WCO supported the workshop by seconding an expert from the Secretariat.

The TRS measures the average time between the arrival of goods and their release. This allows Customs and other stakeholders to identify any problem areas and potential corrective actions to improve efficiency and facilitate exchange. The WCO has been supporting Members in East Africa and the EAC Secretariat in respective endeavours for several years. Already in 2012, with the financial support of the Japanese Customs Co-operation Fund (CCF-Japan) and of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the WCO assisted the EAC Secretariat in carrying out a pilot study on the Northern Corridor for goods in transit between Mombasa, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda. The results of this pilot study serve as the basis for the current study and above all for the plan to create a single Customs territory for the States of the EAC region. The experience equally supports the WCO in its efforts on other regional studies using the methodology proposed in the WCO TRS Guide and, in particular, the data analysis software developed by the WCO.

The Workshop in Kigali was extremely successful and the WCO contribution was greatly appreciated by the working group members.

For reasons of confidentiality, and since the results obtained within the framework of the current TRS along the central transit corridor are still provisional, it will only be possible for the EAC to publish the required information and the findings after future Validation Workshops. These workshops will bring together all the stakeholders, including in particular the public sector and private sector players who have all been involved in this study.