The Kenya Revenue Authority has announced that on April 4 and 5, 2006, its customs system will not operate for two days as part of routine upgrades of this system.
In a notice published on Tuesday, the KRA stated that its Integrated Customs Management System (ICMS) will not be available for use from April 4 to 6 due to system upgrades.
As a consequence, importers, exporters and clearing agents will not be able to use the system to process goods, which means that these users’ services will be affected during this period.
According to KRA, the purpose of performing maintenance on the system is to improve the performance of the system and to assist in reducing some of the concerns that users have raised regarding their use of the ICMS.
The KRA has requested that all users of the system plan in advance.
Importers and clearing agents are encouraged to submit their documents and pay for their cargo prior to the shutdown to mitigate the potential for delays in customs clearance.
KRA further noted that users of perishable goods should take extra precautions to process their shipments before the shutdown to eliminate the potential for losses associated with perishables being left in customs when the system is not operational.
In conjunction with this notice, the KRA has indicated that its customer service center will have staff available to assist anyone with questions or require clarification.
The planned downtime comes shortly after KRA carried out maintenance on the iTax platform, and made it available to many Kenyans to file tax returns and make payments.
This work was done over a 2 or 3 hour period and was intended to improve the iTax platform.
These improvements will build a more reliable and user-friendly iTax platform for those businesses who use this system on a daily basis.
