This first meeting was to introduce the NTB reporting mechanism to stakeholders in East and Southern Africa, to improve the efficiency of the system and to resolve as many NTBs as possible.

The meeting was sponsored by TMSA and FESARTA’s travel and accommodation were funded by TMSA.

Over 90 delegates attended, including private sector associations, NTB member state focal points and other government representatives.

Vonesai Hove explained how the system worked and its enhancement through the sms reporting system.  The Southern African telephone number to be used for sms reporting, had been established, ie +2772 949 2093.  The East African number was still to be sourced.

The sms reporting system worked as follows:  The complainant would send an sms to the NTB system.  The system would respond to the complainant, possibly asking for further information.  After the complaint had been assessed by the system as to the complaint being legitimate, the complainant would be automatically informed of the NTB number and that the NTB had been logged on the system.  The system would also make contact with the focal point/s in the offending member state; asking it/them for a response to the NTB.  The complainant could contact the system, using the NTB number and get updates on it.  The system would continue to work with the offending country and the complainant, to resolve the NTB.

 

The cost of the system was currently being borne by TMSA, but the intention was for it to be taken over by the member states.

There was provision for each country to have 5 focal points.  Each member state had at least one focal point and it would probably be housed in the trade ministry.  Other focal points could include customs, transport and private sector.

Complaints to the system would be attended to immediately and those involving policy, would take some time to resolve.

The proposed sticker system was discussed and the following agreed:

• There should be information CDs and also peer educators, to detail the benefits of the system.
• Stickers to be affixed to customs halls, weighbridges, immigration, etc.
• Different languages were to be used, according to the location of the NTBs.
• Electronic and print media, with press releases.
• Billboards and posters.

An EAC breakaway session produced the following outputs:

• A national system should be established in each member state.
• Complaints which were only of local interest, would be dealt with in the member state and not elevated to the regional level.  The national system would “weed out” the irrelevant complaints.
• All NTBs elevated to regional level would be entered into the electronic Tripartite system at tradebarriers.org, and would be dealt with in the normal manner.
• The existing EAC manual system could be maintained, but, all NTBs of a regional nature would be entered into the Tripartite system.  The same would apply to the existing COMESA and SADC manual systems.
• It was difficult to source an sms number in East Africa.  Therefore, Tanzania, which already had an NTB system, would provide a reporting number and it would be the number for the EAC reporting.
• The equipment required to operationalize the system in Tanzania, would be a pc, a modem, an internet link, a simcard and a remote redundant server in the case of a connectivity cut.
• The technical task team would operationlize the Tanzanian number.
• Guidelines would be produced by the administrator, for the reporting of complaints.

The meeting went through the Long Standing NTBs document, and the member states present resolved 14 of them.

FESARTA noted that the NTBs that it had registered, were registered as having originated in South Africa, FESARTA’s office location, since there was no provision for a regional association to register an NTB.  South Africa was not the originator and should not have been responsible for the NTBs at the meeting.  Similarly, Zimbabwe was not the originator of the FCFASA NTBs.

It was agreed that in future regional associations use EAC and/or COMESA and/or SADC, as originators.

FESARTA gave a short presentation on the 2013 Africa Road Transport Forum, to be held in Johannesburg on the 17^th-18^th April 2013.

It noted that the Forum was the private sector’s input to the process of solving NTBs along the corridors in East and Southern Africa.

Only a select number of critical NTBs would be workshopped, so that there was adequate time to find actionable and implementable solutions to each one.

The NTBs were some of those tabled at this meeting and FESARTA was currently finalizing the document detailing them, to be tabled at the Forum.

Barney Curtis.