KenTrade has unveiled a schedule to upgrade TradeNet System to enhance its users’ experience and avoid the system becoming technologically obsolete. This was after the stakeholders were invited early this year to give their inputs in a gap analysis process that the KenTrade had initiated.
In liaison with KenTrade internal team, the system developers are currently deploying the developed system solution to the production environment in readiness for the next step which is User Acceptance Testing, Mr Amos Wangora said recently. This is scheduled to commence by mid-October and will run until March 2021. The new system is scheduled to Go-Live with Phase 1- Piloting with Selected Users for April 5, 2021.
“It will take approximately 18 months to finalize on the Upgrade but I want to assure you that the process will have minimum interference with the normal operations of the System,” KenTrade CEO Amos Wangora assured the stakeholders
The upgrade, which according to the agency is long overdue, will address the challenges of delays in document processing, lack of a 2-factor user authentication mechanism and address the problem of the limited document security features.
Other challenges the system has experienced in the past and which the upgraded system seeks to cure are limited visibility of information to users due to lack of dashboards and few standard reports and cumbersome user registration process delaying registration process.
The upgraded system will also focus on Master Data harmonization with Partner Government Agencies (PGAs) with increased ability to add more integration, make user administration easy and reduce the high total cost of ownership
Kenya TradeNet System has been operating since October 31, 2013 when it officially went live. It has registered over 12,500 system users and 35 PGA, with 5 of them completely integrated and others in progress
Crimson Logic of Singapore is upgrading the TradeNet System. The government collects over US$22.19 million through the system per year with majority of Government agencies recording double digit growth in revenue year in year on.
Crimson Logic developed the software and has been assisting in running it but according to Wangora, the process of enhancing local capacity is also ongoing to reduce overreliance on software developer. “The new system will utilize current technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Block chain,” Wangora said in an earlier interview.
The process to upgrade the system, dubbed Trade Facilitation Platform (TFP), started in December last year with gap analysis.
Meanwhile, KenTrade has been conducting end user training sessions to build capacity to enable stakeholders to effectively use the Kenya TradeNet System. Recently, the agency conducted a Training Needs Assessment to establish the satisfaction levels of the trainings that the Agency has been conducting.
“Based on the findings and your feedback, the Agency has reviewed the Kenya TradeNet End User training fees in Mombasa and Nairobi upwards by 50% and a reduction of training in regional areas by 50%,” Wangora said.
KenTrade has also introduced a mandatory refresher training for all Kenya TradeNet users effective January 1, 2021, which the agency will charge a flat rate of Ksh.5,000 per user.
The agency is in the process of updating the training curriculum to align it with the industry developments and stakeholder requirements which will include the introduction of e-learning.
The online training is in response to the safety concerns as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. However the classroom training will still continue but with strict adherence to guidelines as stipulated by the Ministry of Health, according to Wangora.
