The Ministry of East African Community (MINEAC) was established in 2008 to coordinate Rwanda’s integration into the EAC in order to promote the development goals of Rwanda and the region, operating as a link between Rwanda and the EAC secretariat. It is in line with this mission that the ministry established a national SMS feedback mechanism to provide quicker and generally more efficient services at the country’s borders.
November 15th was an extraordinary day for traders within the East African Community as this day marked the official launch of the National SMS feedback system to respond to queries and concerns on Non-Tariff Barriers by the Ministry of East African Community together with its stakeholders that included the National Police, the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration, Rwanda Revenue Authority, MINICOM, Private Sector Federation, and Rwanda Bureau of Standards.
This platform developed by HeHe’s engineering team, was officially presented to the end-users last Friday at the Gatuna border where over 1000 people cross daily to and from the neighboring country of Uganda. This ceremony which was chaired by MINEAC Permanent Secretary Mr. Safari Innocent gathered officers from the directorate of Immigration, private sector, Ministry of trade representatives, police officers, border managers from both Rwanda and Uganda, traders, journalists and many other different people.
“Let us all protect our community, be committed and stand strong, our unity is our anchor, Long live our community”, were the words sung by all attendees in Swahili. Strong words that make up the EAC Anthem; after which different keynote speeches were delivered mainly by the guest of honor PS Safari Innocent who recognized the presence of all the attendees on behalf of the Minister and shared a brief background of the SMS Feedback platform before handing over to team HeHe for a demonstration.
HeHe’s Chief Technology Officer Amiri Mugarura introduced the application creatively through a skit whose actors were real-life RRA border officers and a trader. Using a common tax related problem, they acted out a scene to drive the point home on how the system works. “This system is meant to solve in real time issues people face when trying to clear their goods at all EAC borders through a free, reliable and easy to use SMS platform.” – said HeHe’s CTO. Using a simple feature phone, the person with a problem at a border can text in using a keyword corresponding to the institution that can address their problem best including police, RRA or any other above stated stakeholders, then leave a space and write clearly the question that they send to 2525 for those within Rwanda, and +250789252525 to those across the borders. Responses will be coming from allocated people from the institutions concerned commonly called focal points, who are the only people able to access the system internally using highly secured credentials to ensure credibility of the responses.
Positive feedback and comments followed the presentation, showing that the system shall soon make a tremendous contribution to transparency and quick service delivery.
The permanent secretary urged the concerned parties to start using the system and generate traffics as the campaign goes on. The campaign started with a symbolic event, where stickers advertising the SMS platform were placed on 3 trucks at the border.
Author: Richard Rusa (Creative director @HeHemobile)