import licensing system of KENya

replies by Kenya to the questions from the United States

The following communication, dated 17 July 2020, is being circulated at the request of the delegation of Kenya.

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The following is the Government's position on the import licensing system in question.

1. The Kenya Government maintains a permitting regime for meat, dairy and poultry products. The Kenya single Window System contains information on products that require permits, and prompts an applicant to which permits and from which government agency, they should obtain them.

2. For commodities that require Directorate of Veterinary Services permits, no letter application to import is required. Instead, the Directorate issues an import permit, also known as a no objection permit.

3.(a)  A letter of no objection, known as the import permit can either be approved, rejected or put on hold pending further appraisal. This is part of risk assessment and decision to issue or not is determined by evaluation of the documents, and other aspects such as sanitary situation of the country of origin at a specific time.

(b)     The purpose of issuing the import permit is for sanitary appraisal and control of the commodities and disease risk management.

(c)     The import permit is not the final document issued by Government Importation also requires an import declaration form (IDF) from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). This has validity period as the import permit.

(d)     Period of determination on whether to approve or not is one day after the importer has applied and paid for the permit.

(e)     The Director of Veterinary Services (DVS) is a one stop processing station for all related commodities. No other ministries are required to process these import permits. However, there are a few collaborating agencies whose permits go hand in hand with the DVS permit during importation and will require this in order to process theirs. These include:

-     Kenya Dairy Board in case of milk and milk products.

-     Kenya Wildlife services in case of game animals and their products.

-     Kenya Fisheries Services in case of fish, fish products and other aquatic products.

(f)     Reasons for objection of a permit are always made clear to the applicant. These have to be complied with before the application is approved.

(g)     A system of appeal exists in case of permit rejection, but this is still done within the DVS system. The applicant may be required to explain why he/she cannot comply wholly or partly with certain requirements. This will then be reviewed and appraised accordingly before final approval.

The DVS final response is done within one day after the applicant lodges the appeal.