[ad_1]
SOUTHERN African Customs Union (Sacu) executive secretary general Paulina Mbala Elago has left the organisation at the end of her term, which expired on Monday.
She said one of her greatest milestones was being able to calculate and distribute revenue shares and distribute them among members without disputes.
The trade economist had been with the union for eight years since 1 April 2014 and she was reappointed for a second term in 2019.
“Yes, I left the union yesterday (Monday) at the expiry of my contract,” she said yesterday when contacted for comment.
Sacu, which was established in 1910, consists of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Eswatini. It is the world’s oldest customs union.
Elago said she is considering going into consultancy and advisory services.
She highlighted Sacu achievements during her term.
“Sacu has a focussed agenda on industrialisation and there is coherence around that vision among member states,” she sad.
Elago said the union had done a lot of trade facilitation and regional frameworks that have enabled real time exchange of data at the borders.
“We also introduced the economic operators’ programme that fast-tracks the clearing of goods at borders for operating companies – like a green line for traders,” she said, adding that under her watch, Sacu had completed a number of agreements.
“These include an agreement with the European Union (the European Partnership Agreement), with the United Kingdom post-Brexit, and members signed the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement.”
She said the union was always on the lookout for cross-border economic crimes, saying it conducted joint operations in which alcohol and tobacco contraband were confiscated and several people arrested.
“We also discovered false declarations in the past,” she said.
Elago said agreements with the Southern African Development Community had set a foundation to collaborate in a more elaborate way, which resulted in a noticeable increase in trade.
However, she said the biggest challenge during her tenure was that member states were at different levels of development, therefore, their interests were not always the same.
“So we had to find common ground on things like tariff setting and the revenue-sharing formula,” she said.
Email: [email protected]
[ad_2]
Source link