Sierra Leone goes live with Common External Tariff in the Economic Community of West Africa

On 18 December 2017, Sierra Leone becomes the fourteenth country to implement the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS’s Common External Tariff (CET).

Ministers from countries in the sub-regional economic bloc recommended that the new regional CET became operational on 1 January 2015. Since that date only 13 out of the 15 countries had implemented the CET, leaving out only Cape Verde.

The CET is now part of the ASYCUDA system, with a common nomenclature that makes customs procedures transparent, readily followed and will decrease delays at borders.

The country’s revenue authority had organised a sensitization workshop for importers and customs brokers in Freetown, where they informed them that the CET had gone live in the country as at yesterday.

Read the full story on Awoko, OTI’s partner media outlet.