The President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his Tanzanian counterpart, John Pombe Joseph Magufuli Thursday jointly commissioned the Mutukula One Stop Border Post (OSBP), bringing the number of OSBPs in Uganda to four.
The One Stop Border Post is an integrated border system that brings together all the border agencies for improved efficiencies through streamlined, coordinated and harmonised operations.
In Mutukula’s case Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) are able to jointly serve importers and exporters enabling seamless trade facilitation.
The other OSBPs in Uganda are Mirama Hills connecting Uganda to Rwanda, Busia and Malaba connecting Uganda to Kenya.
OSBP and the Single Customs Territory customs initiatives have catapulted growth in volumes of goods cleared through Mutukula from Shs384 Billion in 2013 to Sh 617 Billion in 2017 and exports from Shs93 Billion to Shs 251 Billion in the same period.
Since the inception of the OSBP at Mutukula, cargo clearance time has dropped significantly from three days to hours, said Doris Akol, Uganda Revenue Authority Commissioner General.
The customs initiatives like OSBP, Single Customs Territory(SCT), the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) and the Uganda Electronic Single Window have not only ensured more revenue for Uganda, they have also set a benchmark for Uganda nationally, regionally and internationally.
As a result, Uganda won the bid to host the 4th World Customs Organisation (WCO) Global Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) conference in March 2018, the first of its kind in Africa.
Records from TRA show Tsh 27,776,716,217.00 ($12m) has been collected since August 2016 to June 2017, the time during which the Mutukula OSBP has been operational compared to the year 2014/2015 where Tsh 18,646,417,015.00 ($8.1m) was collected.
The Mutukula OSBP and many other customs initiatives have been made possible with the support of the Department for International Development (DFID) through TradeMark East Africa.
