Africa Reforms Customs Amid Ongoing Trade Issues
African trade is getting a boost from a customs revamp, but logistics and transit bottlenecks still pose significant challenges. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has partnered with Nigeria’s Bergmans Security Consultants and Supplies Ltd. in a $3.1 billion deal to roll out a unified continent-wide customs system.
The project aims to digitize customs processes, streamline cross-border procedures, and provide real-time cargo tracking, with the goal of reducing corruption, revenue leakage, and trade misinvoicing. Phyllis Wakiaga, a Kenyan lawyer and former Kenya Association of Manufacturers CEO, considers this initiative potentially very significant.
Streamlining Trade
One of the biggest barriers to intra-African trade is the friction businesses face at borders through slow clearance, duplicated documentation, and inconsistent customs procedures, Wakiaga said. Bergmans, based in Abuja, Nigeria, intends to help AfCFTA achieve its goal of doubling intra-African trade by 2035.
They face fundamental trading challenges, such as payments, across the continent. Companies often have to route transactions through hard currencies and third-party intermediaries, resulting in high costs that will remain even if customs procedures improve, Wakiaga noted.
Payment Systems
The 2022 launch of the Pan-African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) could potentially unlock the anticipated benefits of AfCFTA, Wakiaga added. But rollout is slow, with the network only connecting 19 countries so far, out of the African Union’s 55 member states.
It has a population of roughly 1.6 billion people as of 2026, up from 1.2 billion when the AfCFTA agreement was first signed.
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Logistics Challenges
Jacqueléne Coetzer, founder and CEO of a pan-African business advisory and trade firm, described the convoluted process of transporting cargo across the continent by land, sea, and air. Goods are frequently routed through South Africa, Europe, or the Middle East, adding significant transit time and cost.
Coetzer explained that modernizing customs creates an essential foundation, but it’s not a complete solution. Without parallel investments in logistics, payment systems, standardized regulations, and physical infrastructure, a streamlined customs framework will fall short.
A perfectly digitized customs declaration does not help much if the truck cannot cross the border efficiently because the road is inadequate, or if the cargo then spends days waiting for space at a congested port, Coetzer said.
Intra-African trade hit about $220.3 billion in 2024 and roughly $213.8 billion in 2025, with the African Export-Import Bank, or Afreximbank, projecting it will reach $230 billion in 2026.
But, as Coetzer noted, getting customs right is only part of the challenge. If logistics, payments, infrastructure, standards, production capacity, and political implementation remain unresolved, it will simply create a faster system for moving goods through borders that still cannot move enough goods efficiently.
The real objective should therefore be much more ambitious. AfCFTA needs to build an integrated continental trading system, not simply a continental customs system, Coetzer added.
