2. Customs Administration

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    Effect of Customs procedures on the performance of clearing and forwarding agents operating at Customs Entry Points : a case of Inland Container Depot Nairobi.
    (KESRA/JKUAT - Unpublished research project, 2020) Kipkoech, Brenda Jepkogei
    The International business society has been expanding financing in ventures that encourage trade simplification, expansion of logistics in the emerging economies and incorporating sea ports. In Kenya, as in many other nations, Customs is in the frontline of the various agencies that mediate in international trade of goods. Customs procedures in Kenya suffered from manual operations, arbitrary decisions, corruption and delays in clearance. Lack of standardization policy for customs procedures has led to customs taking weeks to be cleared from customs making it inefficient. Therefore, there is need to establish the effect that customs clearance procedures have on the performance on the multi-agency stakeholders at customs entry points in Kenya. The general objective of this project is to identify the effects of customs procedures on the performance of multi-agency stakeholders at customs entry points in Kenya. The specific objectives are to determine the effects of customs declaration, customs verification and customs release procedures of clearing and forwarding agents in Nairobi, Kenya. The research included a relevant theoretical framework to frame and inform every aspect of the dissertation and therefore the research used four theories as a guide for the study: Resource-based theory which is aligned to independent variable of customs verification, Theory of queuing aligned to independent variable of customs release and Technology Acceptance Theory aligned to the dependent theory of performance. These theories are relevant in showing the importance of the research the assumptions and the application of the study. The study employed questionnaires to collect primary data. The questionnaires were designed based on the objectives of the study and derived from the literature review. Questionnaires were used because the study is concerned with the views, perceptions and feelings of the clearing and forwarding agents and such variables cannot be easily observed directly. Secondly, the sample size that was used in this study was also quite large and given the time constraints, the questionnaire was ideal tool for collecting data. The study used semi-structured questionnaires, with a mixture of focused and free-response items in a single instrument. This enabled the study to collect quantitative data from the closed-ended section and qualitative data from the open-ended sections. The study used a descriptive survey research design. The target population involved 350 clearing and forwarding firms based in the industrial area of Nairobi, Kenya. The sample size consisted of 30% of the target population representing 105 firms. Primary data was collected and spawned for the project at hand. Quantitative data collected was evaluated using regression analysis, and the study revealed that Customs procedures have an adequate impact on performance of clearing and forwarding agents. Inadequate scanners for verification, insufficient verification staff who can hardly verify 20 containers daily, SIMBA system downtime affecting declaration and manual processes for customs release were found to reduce clearance time. In areas that need improvement, most respondents cited installation of more scanners, smart gates technology and improving SIMBA system in order to reduce downtime. The study concludes that the process of declaration enhance the performance of clearing and forwarding agents to an adequate level. On the other hand, Customs verification and release were found to improved performance to a large extent. The findings further discovered that customs verification and release was significantly linked to performance. However, customs declaration was insignificantly related to performance. The coefficient of determination was 83.9% implying that it was appropriate for the data, the overall regression model was statistically significant since its p-value (0.000) was less than 5%. The study recommends the need to adopt pre-lodgment of documents to reduce delays in border clearance procedures.