By Kingsley Jassi:
A cross-border trader from Chitipa District, Walinase Msiska, ply trade in various commodities between the Malawi-Tanzania border, a business she and others in her area have been doing for a couple of years.
She has been running the business without export permits, hence the use of uncharted routes. It is actually far to get to the border post and that alone is an inconvenience she avoids.
However, the risk is high especially for large volumes which could be confiscated by border patrol officers.
“It is very risky, sometimes we lose it all when we are caught by Police who patrol these routes regularly together with MRA [Malawi Revenue Authority],” she admits.
She is under a cooperative that has been working on formalising the export business and increasing volumes.
They have to travel to Lilongwe to do the process of securing various permits for agricultural export business but this is a turn off already and the idea is shelved for now.
President of Crossborder Traders Association (CBTA) Steve Yohane confirms that cross-border trading has a myriad of challenges that put off potential traders while pushing many into smuggling. Many of the challenges involve processes of obtaining various permits.
“We have been engaging authorities to iron out issues cross border traders face every day but not much is changing,” he said.
Perhaps, a lot will change soon with the introduction of a National Single Window (NSW), a World Bank initiative that intends to provide a platform that brings together government departments and agencies that are involved in trade.
The Southern Africa Trade and Connectivity (SATC) Project is a 6-year, $150 million World Bank funded project with several components that include the National Single Window and is being implemented from between 2021 and 2027.
The main objective of the project is to increase private sector activity along targeted corridors of Malawi and Mozambique.
“Single Window solution is a one-stop platform for information exchange between traders and government agencies involved in international trade, integrating customs, ports, maritime authority and other government agencies through electronic ICT platform,” reads a brief about the facility.
It will serve as a single-entry point for data to be entered and reused in multiple regulatory documents, which includes imports, exports and transit related transactions, minimising the need for physical transactions in modern trade.
Singapore is one of the countries with the most efficient digital trade platforms, boasting innovations that have earned global recognition such as its digital procurement system which is touted as transformative in that country’s economic boom.
It should be no surprise that the government of Malawi appointed a Singapore firm, Crimson Logic, a software provider with a wealth of expertise in national single window as it has been behind Singapore TradeNet since its inception in the late 1980s.
Once operationalized, the system will allow the international trade and transport stakeholders in Malawi to transact with border control agencies via only one system, thus the term single window.
“The NSW is a highly convenient tool for private sector stakeholders since all information associated with trade or related transport transactions is submitted and retrieved from a single system.
“Private sector stakeholders reap the benefits of electronic access: savings in time and resources since physical submission and collection of documents are eliminated,” reads the project brief.
It further explains that border control agencies are linked to the NSW platform to process transactions but operate in the background, but with workflow management of their organizations integrated into the NSW.
According to Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Christina Chatima, cross-border traders from all corners of the country will be able to apply and obtain permits online once the national single window will be operational.
At this point, it is the expectation that people like Walinase Msiska and her cooperative will be able to easily obtain export permits from their areas of businesses and export commodities formally.
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