Effect of reforms in customs administration system on trade facilitation in Kenya
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Date
01-10-18
Authors
Kibaki, Joel Muchiri
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
KESRA/JKUAT - Unpublished research project
Abstract
Customs administrations today face a variety of political and administrative pressures and challenges. These include fluctuating workloads with static or declining resources, greater business expectations, and continuing pressures to meet often-conflicting government revenue, trade facilitation, social protection, and national security objectives. To cope with these pressures and challenges, the international customs community looks to the applied use of information technology (IT) as a catalyst for improving organizational and operational efficiency and effectiveness. The general objective of this research was to establish the effect of reforms in custom administration system integrity, efficiency and governance on trade facilitation in Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of reforms in integrity of ICT infrastructure, improvements in efficiency of ICT service delivery and ICT governance reforms on trade facilitation in Kenya. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. This study was carried out in Nairobi. The study involved 492 employees in the Customs Services Department of KRA at KRA headquarters in Times Towers, Nairobi. The sampling frame that was applied in this study was a list of employees in the Customs Services Department of KRA. This study employed stratified sampling technique to select the study participants. Questionnaire was utilized as data collection instrument in the current study. Analysis was through both descriptive and regression statistics. Presentation of results for both the descriptive and inferential statistics was through tables, pie-charts and graphs. Study results indicate that reforms in ICT integrity had significantly and positively affected trade facilitation (β = 0.540; t = 4.714; p < 0.05). Further, findings showed that reforms in efficiency of ICT service delivery positively and significantly influenced trade facilitation (β = 0.385; t = 2.550; p < 0.05). Additionally, study findings revealed that reforms in ICT governance at KRA had a significant and positive effect on trade facilitation (β = 0.174; t = 2.096; p < 0.05). From the study findings, the following recommendations are made. First, Customs initiatives, such as deferred payment of revenues, clearance on minimum information, periodic goods declarations, tariff-free policies and duty-free imports, and so on have to be carefully reviewed and integrated with any new legislation and systems upgrade. Secondly, any modernization of the customs systems should encompass the alignment of Customs procedures and documents with international standards, conventions and other instruments. Lastly, the introduction of Customs Automation by KRA should ensure that the systems it adopts are compatible with what other governmental departments and private sector stakeholders, whose activities involve Customs operations have.
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Keywords
Trade Facilitation, Customs Administration, Reforms