Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, a sub- regional workshop of the Master Trainers Programme on Post Clearance Audit (PCA) was held in  Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 10- 14 September 2018. 

This workshop is the first in a series of activities to be undertaken by the five countries in East Africa, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, to enhance their capacity on the implementation of PCA under their 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 and self-contained 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. 

In total, twenty (20) Customs officials nominated by the respective Revenue Authorities in East Africa participated in this workshop.  During the workshop, each Revenue Authority shared its issues and challenges it is facing in the implementation of PCA as well as efforts in strengthening customs control without jeopardizing trade facilitation measures. Invited experts from the WCO, East African Community (EAC) Secretariat and Japan Customs shared their knowledge and expertise on PCA from global, regional and national perspectives and contributed to the improvement of the knowledge and expertise of participants to be quality trainers.  At the end of the workshop, participants jointly developed their collective work plan to achieve the two objectives of the MTP for the progressive activities to be followed and jointly supported by the WCO and JICA.

Both WCO and JICA welcomed the strong ownership and commitment clearly demonstrated by the participants during the workshop and reaffirmed their support to the continuous efforts of Customs administrations in East Africa to ensure sustainable capacity development.