President Uhuru Kenyatta toured the Kenya Railways Corporation in light of launching the Nairobi National Cargo Deconsolidation Centre ( NCDC-Nairobi) where he inspected the expanded government facility to ensure standards are met while meeting with the small scale traders who use the warehouse to store their imported goods.
The Project is under the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) which has opened new warehouses at the KRC transit shed in Nairobi county.
The Facility will ensure that the capacity of consolidated cargo from the initial (5) 40-foot containers to (15) 40-foot containers. The centre also seeks to expand the corporation storage capacity to handle more cargo within Nairobi and its surroundings for small scale traders.
This will now allow more than 7,500 small scale traders in Nairobi and the environs to find it easier to collect their goods from the Kenya Railways Corporation transit shed after the government gazettes the facility to deconsolidate cargo.
KRA Acting Commissioner, Customs and Border Control Pamela Ahago through a statement said that all cargo consolidated at the countries of export, will, upon importation into the country be deconsolidated at facilities designated for that purpose.
The President was keen to note that the Kenya Railways will now work for 24 hours to cater for Kenya growing demands each day. He said that the key reason for the shed is to protect traders who import goods from outside the country against corrupt clearing agents who have made business difficult for small scale traders.
The shed, also known as ‘Boma line’ has been set up as part of government efforts to facilitate and enhance ease of doing business. The facility will also reduce the cost of doing business for small traders. The facility will serve traders in Nairobi and its environs while facilitating easy access to their goods.
Cargo designated for other parts of the country will be deconsolidated at the other designated facilities.
The owners of the consignment will collect their cargo from the deconsolidated centres.
The small traders will now not pay the USD1000 as container deposits which will subsequently reduce the cost of doing business.
More Traders will be served and this will reduce the number of queues witnessed in previous years while accessing this crucial service from the KRC. The move will enable the country to collect Ksh1 Billion in extra revenue. The new developments were received warmly by netizens who lauded the new developments.
Establishment of the ‘Boma Line’ is part of initiatives to bring services closer to taxpayers and facilitate them to conduct their business effectively and efficiently. For instance, going forward traders from far areas such as Nanyuki and Sagana will no longer incur huge transport costs to ferry their goods from ICDN as this shade will be easily accessible.
Cargo for the SMEs will be transported from Kilindini Port to ICDN, Embakasi, and later transshipped to the Transit Shed using Metre Gauge Railway (MGR). At the shed, consolidated cargo will be stripped from containers and stored in Customs shed while being arranged according to their nature with marking for easy tracking and identification.
The verification by Customs officers and other Government agencies will be done on these specific single goods as opposed to the typical verification of a whole container.
Importers, cargo consolidators, and their clearing agents are required to fully comply and provide correct information to Customs to avoid the contravention of Sections 203 (a) and (b) of the East African Customs Management Act (EACCMA) 2004 that makes it an offence to make a false declaration of any kind.
The project is a joint initiative between the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) following the launch of a Container Freight Station (CFS) by his Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta at the KRC Transit shed, Nairobi in November 2020
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