Ethiopia is a landlocked country that depends on neighboring countries for all its importrnand export trade. Djibouti port is one of the major entry and exit of the internationallyrntraded goods. In order to facilitate the international trade, the Ethiopian government hasrnembarked on developing dry ports in the hinterland. Modjo dry port is one of these dryrnports and accommodates the majority of imports to the country. This effort of expandingrnthe dry port can be taken as an encouraging step towards facilitating trade, but assessingrnand improving the service providing process is crucial. Some reports indicated that therncargo clearance process within the dry port is impacted by different obstacles and led tornan inefficient cargo clearance system. This study aimed at assessing the causes of importrncargo inefficiency in Ethiopia, the case of Modjo dry port. The objective of the study is tornassess the reasons for cargo clearance procedural inefficiency of Modjo dry port andrnemployed an explanatory method and used a qualitative research approach. Primary datarnwere collected by distributing 95 survey questionnaires and 83 questionnaires responded,rnwhich means 87 percent successfully returned back. The collected data were firstrndescribed by descriptive statistics and further analyzed using inferential statistics and alsornemployed a regression models. The result of the findings specifically related to therndocument requirement, traceability of cargoes, border clearance time, application of riskrnmanagement, and coordination of border agency; which are the major causes of importrncargo clearance inefficiency in Modjo dry port. These showed that importers incurredrnunnecessary costs and cargo delay. Some of these problems should be solved by thernEthiopian Customs Commission and others in conjunction with the Ethiopian MaritimernAffairs Authority to accommodate the function of all operations at the dry port.