Arusha - Green Customs Initiative

Officer in making reference. He also revealed other options for reference of chemical
weapons such e-mail which free of charge as well as the website of OPCW.
A delegate from Kenya raised concerns on allowing chemical weapons to be entering trade
free zones/ports as it may be difficult recoding such transaction as there might lack control or
reporting mechanism in such particular settings. Mr. Laza shared the same sentiment that such
challenges do exist in free trade zones and this depends on the national legal setting. In this
regard he suggested the need for consistent legislation in these zones. Mrs Apollo, one of the
Co-chairs, informed that in Tanzania there are free trade zones but still Customs controls these
areas and imported goods are identified and accounted for to have entered the country though
taxes are paid once the goods are collected.
RECOMMWNDATIONS
The Green Customs Initiative and Journalist Workshop for East Africa was held from 14-18
November, 2005 at the Mount Meru Hotel, Arusha, Tanzania. The following issues across the
MEAs were identified as hampering effective implementation of the MEAs by Customs
Officers:
Environmental crime or illegal trade of environmentally-sensitive products such as
ozone depleting substances, hazardous waste and endangered species is complicated
and difficult to detect;
Lack of regulatory measures to regulate legal trade in environmentally-sensitive
products;
Lack or limited capacity to address illegal trade in terms of financial resources,
equipment, tools and human resources;
Low level of awareness to the general public on illegal trade across a all MEAs;
Ineffectiveness of compliance and enforcement measures of all MEAs including:
- Lack of harmonization of some elements such as investigation and prosecution
approach;
- Lack international cooperation in investigation;
- Lack of inter-agency cooperation particularly at the national level;
- Lack of monitoring system to track illegal trade from the point of source to the
end user; and
- Lack of clarification of roles and responsibilities of key players;
Lack of monitoring, evaluation and feedback systems on the implementation of MEAs
control measures to gauge/measure the effectiveness of control measures and
magnitude of the illegal trade problem;
Non existence of networks and linkages to assist sharing and exchange of information
on illegal trade/ smuggling schemes and tricks;
Poor good governance to tackle the issue of corruption which undermines efforts to
effectively combat illegal trade across MEAs;
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