Covid-19’s impact on transportation in East Africa has been the greatest impediment to trade in the entire region. Due to the multiple medical tests that drivers are forced to undertake, the wait period has been a critical hinderance on goods being delivered on time. This has drastically changed much of the supply of goods and services from the two key ports of the region, namely the Mombasa Port in Kenya and the Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania.
With the global pandemic continuing its tirade, no corner in the world is spared. Trade in Eastern Africa has severely been affected by internal and regional barriers inhibiting competitiveness of regional goods and services.
Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, for example, the port of Mombasa, the busiest in East Africa, handled approximately 27 million tonnes of cargo and processing more than one million containers. Following the pandemic, however, the import cargo experienced a drop of around 4.5 per cent with exports and transshipment cargo declining by 1.3 and 18.3 per cent.
With these challenges, there has been pressure in the cost of production and transportation rendering products and businesses in East Africa to be less competitive in the global market, thus missing out in the world value chains.
Also Read: EABC calls for mutual recognition of COVID-19 certificates
This, and other bottlenecks experienced in the region could be a thing of the past, with the launch of the new application dubbed ‘Regional Electronic Cargo and Driver Tracking System’ (RECDTS), especially now when countries are working hard to deal with challenges brought by the Coronavirus.
RECDTS is aimed at “capturing and recording of tests, screening, and other health-related observations”, has been adopted by the East African Community as a tool to revive trade in the region.
The development of the mobile application was overseen by TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) working with EAC member states with funding from partners such as European Union, Global Affairs Canada, Danida, Finland, Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Speaking during the rollout of the app, the EU ambassador to Kenya H.E Simon Mordue observed that resolving East Africa Community’s economy challenge is necessary especially during this critical period where regional economies are striving to keep businesses afloat.
“The RECDTS platform is an example of this solution, as it enables several ministries of health in the region to work together in stemming the spread of the virus across borders.”
Solutions through Technology
In a statement, TMEA noted that “it is expected that RECDTS will contribute to protecting lives, support health related protocols and facilitate safe trade. RECDTS will be in use in all partner states and will eventually be extended to EAC neighboring countries, particularly Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).”
The new application will help in the reduction of the number of days it takes to transport cargo from the region’s main port in Kenya. Mombasa Port is a gateway and transport hub in East and Central Africa, making it a hive of activities.
While it took around 3.5 days to move cargo from the Mombasa Port to Kampala, now, the journey has doubled while the journey to Kigali which initially took about 7 days has tripled as a result of the pandemic.
According to Gilbert Langat, CEO of the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa, transporting cargo from Mombasa to Kampala attracted between $2, 000 and $2,200. Today, the same load has increased to $3,200.
One of the major reasons the delays were experienced was due to the strict measures implemented by each country to counter the risk of adding on the ‘imported’ cases with the truck drivers acting as agents. Drivers would be forced to take up to three tests- once in each country- in one journey from Nairobi via Uganda to Rwanda, for example. These tests would take several days leaving the drivers stranded at the border points while awaiting the results.
With the new app, however, health certificates of the drivers issued by authorized test centers can be stored in the system as per the set guidelines.
“The test results are put on the app, which is recorded on blockchain so it can’t be faked, and then the truck driver is tracked all the way,” Frank Matsaert, TMEA’s CEO observed in the African Business. “They can only stop at certain places along the corridor so that the driver doesn’t pick up an infection. It should create a lot more trust between partner states.”
Rolled out in late July and launched in early September, the app is hoped to have a positive impact on about 10,000 trucks traversing the region to deliver cargo.
Keeping trade afloat
In a policy brief ‘The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on trade’ written by Andrew Mold, chief, Regional Integration and AfCFTA Cluster, Office for Eastern Africa, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Anthony Mveyange director of research and learning at TradeMark East Africa, disruptions in the road transport system forced countries to resort to utilizing passenger aircrafts for cargo. In Rwanda for example, only 18 percent of exports were done by air in May 2019. This figure multiplied to 73 percent in May 2020. As a short-term measure to respond to the current crisis and to evade the decline in exports and essential imports, air cargo helps. However, it is a costly effort and may not be sustainable in the long-run.
In addition to the sharing of digital health certificates with the relevant state agencies within the region, the system will also allow Ministry of Health agencies to mutually monitor drivers to ensure that they follow the set regulations in the fight against the spread of the virus. It also supports communication between the health agencies and border officials. Availing reliable and timely test results means that there is faster clearance at the border crossings, thus eliminating congestions that were caused by past COVID-19 testing procedures.
Other benefits include:
- Improved journey and fleet management due to predictability of duration of journeys.
- Enhanced visibility and traceability of truck drivers, cargo, and motor vehicles within country and across EAC borders.
- Improved coordination and collaboration of cross border movement between actors within countries and across borders to minimize transmission through transit corridors.
- Enhancing trust and cooperation between cross border governments, agencies, and private sector, and therefore limiting disruption of movement of goods across borders.
- Reduced transmissions along transit corridors and therefore reduce stigmatization against truck drivers.
As the effects of the COVID-19 continue to disrupt economies across the world, East Africa has adopted a new measure to improve the movement of cargo from the ports to the markets in the region. With more movement, it is expected that there will be increased local and regional trade and consequently leading to the recovery of the economies.
