Ministry of Trade and Industry has revealed that the installation of National Single Window at the hosting centre has been delayed due to procurement challenges.
Director of Trade in Goods at Ministry of Trade and Industry, Charity Musonzo made the revelation Wednesday in Lilongwe during a press briefing on the implementation of National Single Window Phase II at the Ministry which is being implemented by Southern Africa Trade and Connectivity Project (SATCP) with funding from World Bank as part of the Nacala Corridor development.
She said the system was developed in May, 2024 but the hosting centre require proper infrastructure to operate.
Musonzo said all agencies that are on pilot phase are supposed to go live by August, 2024 and by December, 2024 all agencies dealing with imports, exports and transit trade should be connected to the system.
She said currently the procurement processes are not completed and the Ministry was not be ready to have the infrastructure in place by the time then system would go live.
The Director noted that with the delay the Ministry has put a temporary measure to have a hosting facility at National Data Centre which is under ESCOM in Blantyre.
Musonzo added that an arrangement has been made that the National Data Centre would be hosting it while waiting for the hosting infrastructure expected to be coming into place by March, 2025.
Director of Information, Communication Technology (ICT) at Ministry of Information, Patrick Machika said backup measures would be put in place in order to secure data in the system.
He said this calls for training of the ICT personnel to be involved in the management of the system and put measures to protect it from hackers.
National Single Window is an electronic system that is being introduced to facility trade for imports, exports and transit trade.
The System will reduce time when one takes to lodge documents, certificates and licenses if one wants to import or export trade
The process will tremendously reduce time through single submission, single approval and single transmission of documents.
