Nation Moves to End Cargo Loss At Dar es Salaam Port

Dar es Salaam — In a bid to curb loss of cargos at the Dar es Salaam Port, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has introduced a modern system which will monitor movement of cargos being transported to landlocked countries.Speaking to East African Business Week during the launch of the Electronic Cargo Tracking System (ECTS) in Dar es Salaam recently, the TRA Commissioner General, Mr. Harry Kitillya, said the commencement of the project will mean that loss of cargos will no longer occur because the monitoring system of goods will be conducted from source to destination.
He said the U-track ECTS-1system is ideal for monitoring and managing any fleet size of tankers or cargo trucks operating anywhere around the World.
The ECTS-1 system which could be easily accessible online giving clients the edge since they can he/she needs to remain in control all the time.
"Simply tracking the cargo is not enough", Kitillya said and adding, "But knowing when its content is being tampered with, and/or knowing where it is, is more important," he insisted.
With this technology, he added, it will be possible for TRA to track and arrest truck drivers who tamper with cargos and reducing complaints of loss or fuel adulteration from the cargo owners.
"The system will enable us to avoid cheating from some cargo owners, who have been claiming that their cargos were in transit while in reality they are not," he noted and adding, "It will facilitate both TRA and truck, cargo owners to track their goods up to the destination and in case someone tampered with cargos along the way, the system will determine."
Elaborating on how it works, Mr. Kitillya added, the system will detect any such attempt, records the event and send an alert to the central data base which will be allocated at the TRA headquarters.
It will monitor the movement of goods under custom control up to the point of exit at the borders," he added.
The system will also enable the authority to work efficiently, remove some inconvenience roadblocks which had become a major problem to transporters, he added.
It will help to speed up the process of clearing cargos from the principal port, because it will facilitate faster movement of documents before even the arrival of the goods, he added.
"The aim of introducing the latest technology is to ensure that the documents wait for the cargo and not vice versa. This is one of the government efforts to remove non tariff barriers and cut down costs of doing business in Tanzania," the commissioner said.
The system will be on a three-month trial, he said. Kitillya appealed to stakeholders and the public to work with the authority to ensure that the technology works efficiently especially in the initial stages.
He said electronic tracking systems could be the most effective and relatively less costly option and one of the key strategies to be adopted by both public and private institutions in efforts to reduce loss as well as unnecessary expenditures. The project operates under a self-financing arrangement where the tax agency shall acquire the ECTS software and cover communications costs while transporters acquire electronic seals and related equipment from approved hardware suppliers by purchase or leasing.
The tax agency has given transporters three months from April to acquire the gadgets after which they will be mandatory.
Statistics show that the country loses over $15.7 million monthly due to fuel adulteration, dumping and compensations of lost transit cargo.
According to Mr. Kitillya, all check points with corrupt practices in various routes to the neighbouring countries will be removed, increasing cargo turnaround.
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi transporters may be the biggest beneficiary since they have suffered more losses. Recently Dar Port authorities announced the introduction of a berthing method where ships dock and offload/load on schedule.
By East Africa Bussiness Week