The East African Business Council (EABC) has recommended a number of measures to enhance seamless flow of the cargo at Busia Border as transit cargo.
Transit business is rebounding back to normal after an initial hitch last year, which brought serious delays and congestion as the region introduced new measures to control COVID-19 19 spread.
Following a visit to the border post recently, EABC recommended improvement of the infrastructure at the Busia One Stop Border Post to construction of a 4-lane road to ease cargo clearance- General cargo, passengers, fresh produce and hazardous product.
The team recommended creation of parking for trucks near the Busia OSBP. Also, there is a need for a cargo scanner on the border post to minimize human error, which EABC committed to continue engaging revenue authorities on its installation.
“Insufficient Parking Space for cargo trucks along the northern transport corridor trunk routes still pauses a safety challenge for the traders and border communities,” Dr. Peter Mutuku Mathuki, EABC Chief Executive said.
According to Mathuki, the OSBP is efficiently operating with only 1km truck traffic holding an average of 55 vehicles, mostly petroleum trucks. According to KRA, 1,000 trucks were passing through the border on weekdays with a surge of up to 2,000 trucks on weekends.
KRA expressed that movement of goods had rebound as they had hit their revenue target collecting over Ksh 350 million in the month of December 2020 and January 2021.
Insufficient parking space for cargo trucks along the northern transport corridor trunk routes still pauses a safety challenge for the traders and border communities.
The East African Community region last year adopted the Regional Electronic Cargo and Driver Tracking System (RECDTS). The system has registered drivers in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
The EAC secretariat developed this application with the funding from European Union, Global Affairs Canada, Danida, Finland, Netherlands and the United Kingdom through Trademark East Africa (TMEA).
This 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.
Covid 19 certificate is now generated electronically and every step, data and information about a driver monitored at a common command center in Nairobi.
The Federation of East Africa Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA), the regional private sector apex body of the Customs Clearing and Freight Forwarding (CFA) industry in East Africa took lead in mobilizing private sector stakeholders to participate in the review of the RECDTS system concept.
Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) recently confirmed that the bottleneck along the corridors and delays at the border crossing have reduced.
Another significant measure taken by the industry players was the development of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) last year, which guided the industry in coping with Covid 19 as the logistics industry sought to spring back in a ‘new normal’ environment.
The SOPs were developed by a consultant and a team of industry experts in cargo transport, Warehousing, Freight Forwarding and Customs clearance. They were sent to the different stakeholders for input.
This initiative was also supported by the TMEA. It was rolled out in collaboration with The FEAFFA, KTA, Regional Lorry Drivers and Drivers Association (RLDA) and Tanzania Truck Owners Association (TATOA).
Other collaborators included the Long-distance Drivers and Conductors Association (LODDCA), Transporters Association of Tanzania (TAT), Association des Transporteurs Internationauz du Burundi (ATIB) and Association de Transporateurs et Transitaires Agrees du Rwanda (ATAR).
SOP measures target cargo road trucking- drivers, crew and transporters; warehousing, Container Freight Station (CFSs) and Inland Container Depots (ICD). The other set of measures are targeting customs clearance and freight forwarders sector.
