The Regional Electronic Cargo and Driver Tracking System (RECDTS) that was a launched in September this year at Malaba border post has now addressed most of teething problems and is now seen as major game changer in seamless flow of the cargo through borders, the DW Business Africa and Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) reported.
Alban Odhiambo, a senior director at Trademark East (TMEA) told DW TV that over 50,000 drivers in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania have registered with more recruits from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan expected to join in the coming days.
Mercy Ireri, the Chief Operations Officer (COO) at KTA said that the drivers have embraced the initiative by acquiring new smart phones. She added that although the system faced some initial challenges, it is now serving drivers better.
This was also affirmed by Mr. Robinson Esese, the fleet manager at Danrose Kenya Ltd, a firm that does transit cargo, who added that most of the drivers had already acquired smartphones that they are using to get test results.
Whereas it took up to 10 days to get tests on manual systems, the Covid 19 tests once carried out allows the driver to continue with the journey and once test return positive they are quarantined in the next test point.
This application was developed with the funding from the European Union, Global Affairs Canada, Danida, Finland, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom through TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) and in partnership with the East African Community (EAC) and private sector.
Other key private sector players such as the Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA), the apex body of the Customs Clearing and Freight Forwarding industry in East Africa have been involved in the mobilization of private sector logistics associations to participate in the review of the RECDTS system concept and share their recommendations.
The freight logistics industry players had initially advocated for the development of a private sector led Journey Management System (JMS), an idea that was later was later incorporated in the RECDTS system.
The RECDTS application was conceived to address the challenges manual certificates faced that included multiple testing of truck drivers at border crossing since there was no framework of mutual recognition of testing and test results across borders
Cases of documents fraud were also reported where truck drivers would forge national certificates and use them to cross borders. Also, there were cases of conflicting test results – this would happen when the same driver tested in one country having negative results, would be declared positive after being tested again in another country.
In order to find a solution to some of these challenges, the Joint Ministerial meeting of EAC Ministers responsible for Health and EAC Affairs held on the 25th March 2020, directed Partner States to establish a surveillance system to monitor crew health and enable contact tracing.
The system enables digital verification of transit documents and travel authorization by law enforcement, customs and immigration at border crossings and other strategic locations along the transit corridors. It also facilitates intuitive analyses of data and surveillance of mobility related to cross border movements for better management of the pandemic in relation to cross border mobile population segments.
This system is riding on the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) platform for tracking cargo movement along the corridors, which previously lacked a component of tracking individuals, which has become necessary in the wake of Covid 19 pandemic.
The Ministry of Health has an account for relaying test results and another for validating COVID-19 free certificates before allowing the drivers to proceed. The protocol requires a driver to be tested 48 hours before the start of the journey by an accredited facility in any country as long as the facility is configured in the system.
Once the testing has been done, electronic certificates will be issued in form of a QR code for future scanning and validation by the health officials. No certificates will be issued for positive results and in the event of such cases, the country’s health protocols will apply.
By clicking to start the journey, the truck driver’s mobile phone will become a tracking gadget and will be visible to command centers till the end of the journey. The command centers will share information in real time. Alignment of the consignment to the truck will be done by East African Revenue Authorities (EARAs).
