In July 2022 the Committee of Ministers of Trade approved the SADC Regional Customs Transit Guarantee (RCTG) Regulations as trade facilitation tool to support clearance of the goods under the transit regime. The Secretariat through the EU-SADC Trade Facilitation Programme provided technical assistance to the Republic of Botswana in the form of capacity building to stakeholder to be equipped with the right skill to perform transit Procedure in the Region.
A capacity building workshop was held from 29 to 31 January 2025 in Gaborone, were the Customs Experts from Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) Clearance Agents, Freight Forwarder, Insurance Agencies, Commercial Banks, Transporters have attended.
In his open remarks, Mr. Alcides Monteiro the Senior Programme Officer Customs at the SADC Secretariat, underscored the importance of the workshop to enable stakeholders to perform customs transit operations as per the RCTG Regulations. He recognised Botswana as a critical country transit due to it geographical location and therefore commended the country for frontloading implementation of the RCTG.
The RCTG instrument is meant for the goods in transit using single guarantee from the port of commencement of the transit operations to port of destination, thus simplifying the clearance procedure and cutting the cost of the transaction. The instruments secure the revenue under risk as this can be used when the goods are not accounted for in transit routes.
The SADC RCTG is included in the Regional Trade Facilitation Programme as approved by the Ministerial Task Force on Regional Economic Integration. It is meant to support the consolidation of the Free Trade Area (FTA), Industrialisation Strategy encored on Regional Value Chain, this in line with the Regional Integration Agenda as outlined in the Regional Indicative Strategy Development Plan (RISDP 2020-2030).
It is believed that the implementation of the RCTG will contribute to increasing the volume of intra-SADC Trade and improve business across the region. Customs Transit is also included in the World Trade Organisation Agreement (WTO) on Trade Facilitation and in World Customs Organisation (WCO) Revised Kyoto Convention. This means that the implementation of the RCTG by Botswana and other SADC Member States complies with other international instruments and best practices.
