It The agony of trailer truck drivers and logistics companies are the multiple stoppages they have to make on roads within East Africa.

According to Mr Kassim Omar the chairperson Association of Clearing and Forwarding Agents, the average time trucks take on the road moving between Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda is about three to four days.
“Three days is a long time to be on the road with cargo. It comes with extra costs for the truck drivers, parking space and also sometimes at border points,” he explains.

Last week, the three countries introduced a new Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) that is going to more than halve the time trucks spend on the road.

According to Mr Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the Commissioner Customs at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), the web-based tracking system will eliminate the stops trucks have to make in the EAC member countries.
“In the Northern Corridor, the average movement of goods is about 190,000 consignments that on average spends three days on the road. The cargo tracking system will reduce that time to 1.7 days (36 hours). This is trade facilitation,” he said during the unveiling of the system.

The three countries have been operating their own national tracking systems and that meant on each border point, the trucks had to stop and be checked.

This would lead to queues and sometimes, diversion of goods. According to URA, this process did not provide complete transit monitoring mechanisms leading to cases of dumping, delayed bond cancellation and refund processing and poor information exchange.
There is also so much paperwork that takes away the benefit.
Goods valued at about $2b (Shs7.16 trillion) are traded among the three countries each year.
About 14 per cent ($250m) of that cargo – for now – will be tracked by the new system.
“The process was a barrier to cross-border trade due to multiple arming, disarming and at times verification at all borders along the corridor, this was costly both in terms of money and time,” Mr Kateshumbwa pointed out. Additionally, goods were also at some point getting lost or diverted to a different country depriving owners of their goods and also the government of taxes. For instance, a truck that is Kampala bound is fitted with an electronic tracking device from Mombasa.

The teams at RECTS in Uganda and Kenya will use GPS monitors to track the movement of the cargo.

“If you divert the cargo we shall see. If the tracker is tampered with, it will trigger an alarm at the pinged location and our officials will commence investigations,” said an official that works in RECTS Uganda office at URA.
Source: The Monitor