The Agriculture & Food Authority (AFA) has launched the Agriculture Information Management System (AIMS). The system developed to replace tedious paper-based, manual operations and facilitate automated business processes has been developed with funding from Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) through TradeMark East Africa.
During the launch, Agriculture CAS Lawrence Omuhaka representing the Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya, reflected on the challenges in service delivery which are expected to be solved by the new system.
The challenges include:
• Lengthy application procedures requiring stakeholders to physically visit AFA offices for services.
• Inadequate and inaccurate accountability of crop production by stakeholders in the field through submission of annual returns on the platform by farmers.
• Lack of reliable data and statistics for decision making on better regulation and administration of agricultural commodities.
• Tedious export and import processes and
• Duplication of efforts in service delivery by AFA Directorates
The statement further noted that through AIMS, traders will be able to access regulatory services from AFA from the comfort of their locations.
The system will significantly improve service delivery through:
• Reduction of transactional time and cost in applying for and issuing permits/licenses/certificates regulated by AFA Directorates, as the system eliminates the need for physical presence or interaction.
• Enhancing process visibility by enabling traders to trace their application and related transactions in real-time through the system.
• Advancing trade document integrity through the introduction of security features that enable authentication and verification of documents submitted, and issued to traders.
• Improving access to information relating to production, processing, and trading in agricultural commodities regulated by AFA Directorates, thereby eliminating a key barrier to trade – access and availability of information
• Incorporating electronic payments by integrating to both online and mobile banking hence increasing convenience in submitting applications and paying for services.
• Availing data for analytics and other business intelligence functions that will support regulatory and trade operations
This system will facilitate registration, licensing and provision of production, processing and trade information on all scheduled crops regulated by Agriculture and Food Authority
Acting AFA Director-General Harsama Kello thanked TradeMark East Africa and the Danish government for the financial and technical support in the development of the system. He added that the system will change the way they will do business with the private sector as the bureaucracies that have been existing will be eliminated thereby shortening the time that processes were taking.
