The tea trade in Mombasa made a donation of 10,300 kilograms of tea to the people of Pakistan on 3rd November 2010 at the EATTA Secretariat after the suffering and devastation caused by the recent floods and heavy rains. The tea was packed in water tight 5 kilogram bags. This donation is made in recognition of the good trade relations between the Association members and the great people of Pakistan. The good relationship was exemplified recently by the visit of the High Commissioner of Pakistan to Kenya HE Masroor Jumenjo in April 2010 to EATTA.

The 2010 Pakistan floods began in July 2010 following heavy monsoon rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan regions and affected the Indus River basin. At one point, approximately one-fifth of Pakistan's total land area was underwater. The floods directly affected about 20 million people, mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure, with a death toll of close to 2,000.

Pakistan is an important market of East Africa. Pakistan buys all our grades of tea unlike other markets that buy particular grades. The Pakistan market being predominantly Islamic, takes tea as the beverage of choice. Many of our important tea markets are seasonal in the tea they purchase from the auction so that in some months demand for tea goes down; therefore Pakistan’s demand consistent throughout the year making it an ideal market.

EATTA in Conjunction with SGS Kenya conducted a three (3) day training on Quality Management System ISO-9001:2008 - Awareness and Internal Auditor Training. It targeted  EATTA membership category of tea Buyers and Brokers. The training was held on  6th - 8th October 2010 at EATTA Secretariat.

A record 26 participants attended the the training for the three days. Workshop participants were drawn from different buying and brokers houses within the tea trade. This marks a major milestone in the quest to have EATTA members achieve ISO certification standards.

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The Pro-invest marketing initiatives programme validation workshop took place on Tuesday 8th September 2010.

THE EAST AFRICAN TEA TRADE ASSOCIATION

Expression of Interest

For: Design, Development, Implementation and Commissioning of Electronic Auction system

Ref. EOI/IT-EATTA/01/2010

Date September 2010

Download copy of EOI

Background of EATTA

The East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) is an association body established in 1957 to market tea to the rest of the world through the Mombasa Tea Auction, facilitate effective access to market and other relevant industry information, and promote industry interests rough proactive lobbying and advocacy measures. EATTA has been undergoing major strategic change in all areas including its Business Processes and Service Delivery.

EATTA has conducted a Feasibility study to guide its Business Process Re-engineering process.

EATTA is now looking for partners to implement a Distributed system to support it’s Reengineering process to E-auction.

Objective

EATTA wants to engage a competent IT vendor/ firms with experience in turn-key solutions towards the development and installation of a distributed IT solution with the view to automate the Tea trading procedures with special interest in E-auction.

The software system should enable member of the tea trade to conduct auctions online, buy/sell tea products on retail, offer payment settlement, generate statistical reports,

A company can present a proposal for either:

i. Software solution–Distributed system available via web with the following components:

a. Enterprise database solution preferably Oracle database

b. E-auction module

c. E-commerce platform

d. Banking module for settlement & disbursement

ii. Hardware and Infrastructure solution

a. Data centre with off-shore backup capabilities

iii. Both software and hardware & infrastructure solution 

All of the above solution will be as an outsourced service by EATTA and a firm can present aproposal to carry out the project either on its own or in conjunction with her subsidiaries or partners.

EOI SUBMISSION & EVALUATION

The bidders are required to submit their EoIs in the following indicative format:

General Organization Capacity

1. Organization legally established
2. Organization registered / accredited in Kenya or in any other state
3. Appropriateness of Organizations Mandate and/or Mission
4. Organization’s oversight / governance structures
5. Current staff that are permanent and with relevant experience base to support the
6. implementation of the IT project (programming, monitoring, reporting, finance,procurement, logistics, etc.)
7. Outsourced personnel for specific assignments and their roles
8. Proposed partnership arrangements (i.e. partnerships with local service providers where need be)

Technical Capacity

1. Demonstrated technical capacity of the organization
2. Availability of in-house technical skills
3. Demonstrated ability to achieve results
4. Demonstrate Business Continuity plans
5. Demonstrate Disaster Recovery structures in place

Experience of Organization in IT turn-key Solutions

1. Demonstrate technical capacity to successfully manage the project, based on experience on similar projects
2. Demonstrate experience on projects of similar scope and scale.
3. Demonstrate experience or understanding of auction systems
4. The EOIs will be evaluated based on the information provided and shortlisted firms will be issued with Request for Proposals (RFP)

Reputable Consultants are invited to express interest for Consultancy service and installation of the system. Interested firms MUST provide any relevant information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services through submittal of (Profiles, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff,

Submission of EOIs

Interested vendors should submit their EOI document on or before 24th September, 2010 by

5.00 pm. The EOI document should be addressed to:

The Managing Director,

East African Tea Trade Association,

P. O. Box 85174 80100,

Mombasa

Download copy of EOI

East African Tea Trade Association organized a Tea Quality & Processing Workshop on  the 14th and 16th  October, 2010 in Kericho at the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya.

The workshop was officially opened by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of EATTA - Mr. Nelson Orgut. The participants had been drawn from Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. The facilitator of this training was be Prof. Martin Obanda a renowned Tea scientist with the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya.

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The world Tea & Coffee ExchangeSM in conjunction with EATTA conducted a webinar on a practical demostration of an e-auction on Wednesday 21st July 2010. The webinar was conducted with presenters in differents states in America between 4.00 P.M - 6.30 P.M East African Time.

Objectives:

To showcase the functions of e-auction through a practical session where members participate in real-time

Participants: EATTA Members, although the most represented were buyers, brokers and warehousemen.

Presenters: Mike Maigua, Charity and the team from WTCEX in USA

Areas covered

The webinar presentation covered the following areas:-

1. Advantages of e-auction
2. WTCEX understanding of the EATTA and tea industry
3. Electronic payment
4. Trading platform
5. Retail market segment for value added products
6. Practical participation
7. Questions and answers

Members had a chance to try out practically buying teas on an online system, the bidding was alot of fun as participants tried to outbid the other buyers. Members then had a chance to ask the presenters their questions and got clarifications on different functions of the WTCEX system.

Though there were some teething challenges at the start of the webinar, the event was a success and members have been requesting for another presentation as they get to understand how online systems work.

This is a first presentation cum workshop in a series of workshops that will be held by EATTA as part of the Business Re-engineering process towards full automation of the auction process.

To try out the WTCEX system kinldy log on www.wtcex.com and go to trading platform, you will need to register either as a buyer, seller or warehouse for demo purposes. Use your mobile number so that you can get notifications when you bid or complete a transcation.

FSMS - ISO 22000 Awareness / Internal auditor training - July 2010 

EATTA in Conjunction with SGS Kenya conducted a three (3) day training on Food safety Management (FSM) ISO-22000 awareness and internal auditor training. The training targeted members in the tea warehouses.

A record 30 participants attended the the training for the three days. Workshop participants were drawn from different warehouses within the tea trade. This marks a major milestone in the quest to have EATTA members achieve ISO certification standards.

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The newly appointed Kenyan ambassadors visited the EATTA and the tea trade in mombsa on Tuesday 13th July 2010. The 15 ambassadors who will represent Kenya in various foreign missions visited the EATTA, where they had a meeting with the EATTA management and Board Members.

They later visited the Mombasa Tea Auction to experience first hand the trading at one of the biggest International tea auctions in the world. Later they visited warehouses, and buyer members.

EATTA has been invited by the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture to present its case about the Tea Amendment Bill (2010) populary known as the Kones Bill. EATTA has been invited together with KTDA the only two bodies that have expressed opposition to the Bill and forwarded their petitions to the Clerk of the National Assembly.

The Bills Committe on Agriculture will meet on Monday 28th June 2010 at 2.00 p.m., EATTA delegation will be led by Mr. Brian Ngwiri (Marketing Manager) and the advocay consultants (AGSEC Consultants).

EATTA has several objections to this Bill and will use this case to further the interest of the tea trade.

KRA REVERSES DIRECTIVE ON EXPORT ENTRIES DOCUMENT. The directive from Kenya Revenue Authority requiring export entries to have the container number has been reversed. The Commissioner of Customs Services was in Mombasa last week and she committed that as a permanent solution tea exporters will not be required to fill in the container number when lodging the C17B form. You can start lodging your export entries and if you encounter a problem get in touch with the secretariat.

Kephis have agreed to reduce the inspection charges for teas with multiple custom entries going to one consignee from Kshs. 20,000 to 10,000. For purposes of this levy, multiple custom entries consist of more than one. Whilst it would have been better if the charge was reduced back to the Kshs. 5000, Kephis MD (Dr. Onsando) said that the gazette notice authorizing the increment was first published in 2001 and it has been pending implementation since then. According to the Kephis MD, the increase in the charge was as a result of their cost of operations increasing significantly without commensurate increase in support from the government. This is a matter that EATTA will take up with the government. The Kephis MD requested for an opportunity to meet the tea trade in Mombasa in an open forum to discuss concerns the trade may have with the organisation. EATTA will organise a forum very soon that the Kephis team will come to familiarize themselves with the Mombasa tea auction.

This development is a positive one achieved after alot of consultations and lobbying by EATTA. We strive to continue the advocacy agenda on behalf of the tea trade in eliminating bottlenecks that hinder the smooth running of the trade.

Report of the 19th Session of the IGG on Tea that took place in Delhi, India.

Find out more: http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/018/K7503E.pdf