Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, the fourth Working Group activity (WG4) of the Master Trainers Programme (MTP) on Post Clearance Audit (PCA) was held in Kampala, Uganda on 10-14 February 2020. A total of nineteen (19) customs officials from East Africa, who has been nominated as the PCA WG members got together again for this WCO/JICA joint sub-regional workshop to make another progress to achieve the ultimate objective of the MTP.
This workshop is the fourth in a series of progressive activities to be undertaken by the five Revenue Authorities in East Africa, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, to enhance their knowledge and capacity on the implementation of PCA under the 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 to develop sustainable training capacity within the Customs administrations by 1) developing a pool of well-experienced trainers and 2) regionally featured training materials and programs to be used by these trainers.
With the support extended by the experts from the WCO, East African Community (EAC Secretariat) and Japan Customs, through the three activities so far held since 2018, the nominated officials worked together to improve their knowledge on PCA knowledge/techniques and training skills/competence. They also initiated their work to develop training materials/program at the last WG activity taking into account the unique regional needs and issues/challenges. In the WG4, they intensively worked together further to finalize their training materials including the presentations and case studies to meet their needs.
The participants demonstrated again their great ownership under the MTP. Both the WCO and JICA welcomed their positiveness and reaffirmed their support to the continued efforts of Customs administrations in East Africa to ensure sustainable capacity development.
27 February 2020