The Freight Forwarding and Logistics Business Summit will be hosted in Nairobi on September 13 and 14.
The summit will bring together over 180 delegates from the East African Community to discuss matters affecting the trade system the region.
The conference will bring stakeholders from International and domestic participants from logistics business, warehousing, transport and fleet management and insurance companies
This comes at a time that the government has been on the forefront on the fight against counterfeit goods and has promised to destroy counterfeited and contraband goods.
The chairman of Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association (KIFWA) which is the sole representative of all clearing, forwarding and warehousing companies in Kenya, Mr William Ojonyo, says that the organisation is in full support of the government fight against contraband goods.
“As players in the logistics and supply chain we must all come together with open minds where we need to discuss and bring to fore the weakness in the system to for us to fight illicit trade, it is time the walls between the private sector and the government agencies is brought down for meaningful engagement,” says Mr Ojonyo.
However, Ojonyo warns that the fight should not necessarily aim at entirely punishing culprits but bringing down the vice.
“The intention and spirit of government agencies should be to reduce the vise rather than to punish the culprits, giving targets based on the number of culprits or goods apprehended as an appraisal to regulators is only acting to encourage rather than deter illicit trade,” says Mr Ojonyo.
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“A case in point is when a department of KRA is appraised on revenue raised on offenses rather than companies or importers made to comply only makes the department more corrupt since they then agree on cost sharing with the culprits and encourage for more none compliance at the expense of trade and compliance.”
He says that there can be no progress in the fight if fair competition is not encouraged rather than the case where the motivation is how much money and shrewd business carries the day.
The players in the logistics and supply chain will be discussing and bringing to fore the weakness in the logistic system in order to fight illicit trade, on discussions of bringing the walls between the private sector and the government agencies.
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