Kigali, 5-7 December 2016

At the request of the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA), the World Customs Organization (WCO) undertook a mission to Rwanda aimed at supporting RRA with the implementation of its integrity strategy. The objective of the mission included supporting RRA’s Quality Assurance Department with reviewing the Integrity Strategy, integrity training, whistleblower policy, designing terms of reference for an integrity perception survey and making a presentation on the WCO integrity approach during a workshop for stakeholders among the Clearing Agent community. The mission was undertaken within the framework of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) Customs Capacity Building Project

The WCO mission met with the Commissioner of the Quality Assurance Department and RRA staff involved in integrity matters. It discussed some of the elements of RRA’s Integrity Strategy to ensure it was aligned with RRA’s vision, values and mission as well as with the WCO Revised Arusha Declaration. The WCO and RRA discussed RRA’s integrity training needs which led to the definition of terms of references related to an induction course and the inclusion of integrity in most of RRA’s existing training modules, including at the level of management meetings where integrity would be introduced under the general topic of leadership.

The workshop for Clearing Agents was officially opened by the Deputy Commissioner General, Mr. Pascal Bizimana Ruganintwari, who spoke about the importance of integrity within the RRA and to Rwanda as a whole. The Commissioner of Quality Assurance made a presentation on RRA’s achievements in the fight against corruption and invited the participants to comment freely on how to enhance their relationship with Customs with a view to minimize corruption.

A report was handed to the Commissioner for Quality Assurance that includes a way forward that will pave the way of further cooperation between the WCO and RRA with the support of Norad.

For more information on the project for Customs Capacity Building for WCO Members 2012-17 please contact the Project Manager, Ms. Andrea Hampton (Andrea.Hampton@wcoomd.org)