Kenya acts to ease regional trade, denies sabotage claims

By John Oyuke

Kenya has defended its position on removal of barriers to ease intra-regional trade as agreed upon by East Africa Community (EAC) partner states.

Ministry of East African Community said the country is keen on easing regional trade and has reduced roadblocks along the Northern Corridor from 45 to 15.

It said the decision is part of a wider plan being implemented by the EAC partner states to operationalise the recently formulated ‘EAC Mechanism on Monitoring and Elimination of Non-tariff Barriers in the region.’

The corridor is the main artery of infrastructure linking landlocked countries in the Great Lakes region of East and Central Africa, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda to the sea port of Mombasa.

Transport modes

The passage, which offers a combination of transport modes – road, road to rail, rail to lake and to oil pipeline – accounting for annual cargo volumes in excess of 10 million tonnes and combined transit and transshipment traffic of more than two million tonnes is also linked to Northern Tanzania, Southern Sudan and Ethiopia. Numerous roadblocks are some of the Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) that have been identified by EAC Partner States as an impediment to the smooth flow of intra-regional trade.

The states have agreed on a time-bound programme on elimination of the NTBs as a key component of the implementation of the Customs Union launched four years ago.

A brief by the Ministry of East African Community responsible for regional cooperation, said Kenya held its National Monitoring Committee Meeting on January 30, where it considered the draft EAC time-bound programme on elimination of NTBs.

The meeting said Kenya was implementing measures to eliminate non-tariff barriers. During a meeting of industry players at the port of Mombasa, last November, Uganda and Rwanda expressed concern over what they termed as lack of goodwill by Kenya to facilitate trade.

In August, President Kibaki ordered that the number of weighbridges be reduced from eight to two, one at Mariakani and the other at Malaba, and roadblocks brought down from 47 to 15.

However, according to Rwandan representative John Gasagwa, who is also general manager of a Mombasa-based transport and clearing company, this had not been effected by the time the Mombasa meeting was taking place.