Rising trade volumes blamed for congestion at Namanga border post

Arusha. Increased volumes of traded goods are behind frequent queues of lorries at the Namanga border post, The Citizen has learnt.

Breakdowns or failures of the electronic systems for goods clearance, mainly on the Kenyan side, have compounded the situation.

“There had been an increased volume of goods crossing the border,” said Mr Paul Kamukulo, the Arusha regional customs officer.

He was responding to last week’s traffic snarl-up at Namanga where at one point more than 300 lorries, mostly heading to Kenya, were stranded there.

He said what has been happening at Namanga lately was not unusual given the increasing trade volumes between Tanzania and Kenya.

The volumes of goods traded between the two neighbours sharply went up from early last year as they edged much closer than prior to 2021.

This followed a visit by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to Nairobi where together with her host President Uhuru Kenyatta they agreed to scrap long standing trade disputes.

Bilateral trade between the two members of the East African Community (EAC) hit nearly $1 billion in the first eleven months of last year.

During the period, Kenya imports from Tanzania stood at $501 million and exports $403.9 million, clearly in favour of Tanzania.

A significant bulk of the traded goods between the two states are routed through the shared facility at the Namanga One Stop Border Post (OSBP).

The busy border, some 110 kilometres from Arusha, turned chaotic late last week when loaded lorries could not cross into Kenya and vice versa.

The clearing agents and lorry drivers alike blamed the situation on ‘malfunctioning systems’ without specifying the main culprits.

Mr Kamukulo, when reached on phone, stated that the long queue of heavy lorries had been cleared from the border crossing by yesterday.

“Such incidents are not permanent,” he said, noting that the shared border post never came to a standstill despite the traffic snarl-up.

However, the customs official hinted that there had been failure of electronic systems for goods clearance on the Kenyan side.

The lorry drivers, on their part, attributed their plight to a single scanner on the Kenyan side which could not cope with the huge number of lorries.

Last week, the minister for Investment, Industries and Trade Ashatu Kijaji visited the border post where she was confronted by the stranded lorry drivers and clearing agents.

Despite telling them she was aware of the crisis, the border traders pointed a finger to slackness on the part of the trade facilitation agencies.

Dr Kijaji had just attended a meeting of the EAC Sectoral Council on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment in Arusha.

According to her, she discussed the Namanga border crisis with the Kenyan government officials at the meeting and agreed that it be sorted out.

There had been a suggestion that the unified border post should operate for 24 hours in order to ensure timely clearance of goods and cope with the increasing cargo traffic.

This is one of the requirements by the EAC when the OSBPs were launched to facilitate trade; specifically the movement of goods in the region.

Currently there are over a dozen of them fully operational across the region, Namanga being among the leading in volumes of traded cargo.

However, Mr Kamukulo said it was still more convenient for the officials of the two countries to undertake cargo clearance no later than 6pm.

“The border operates for 24 hours for movement of people but not for goods clearance,” he said, hinting at the shortage of manpower for round-the- clock assignments.

The lorries stranded at the border before the situation eased on Sunday included tankers carrying Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from Tanzania to Kenya.

No official was ready to clarify on this but sources intimated that the gas from Tanzania was deliberately blocked by Kenyan gas importers.

LPG which entered the EAC market through the Mombasa port is charged $94 per tonne compared to $64 import duty for the same product at the Dar es Salam port.

Given the increasing transactions at Namanga, several trade facilitation agencies at the border are reported to be short of staff.

The customs department which is under the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) is reported to have embarked on staff recruitment to fill the gap.

This is more challenging for other organizations working at the border such as the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) which have only a few officials stationed there.

The Arusha regional chapter of the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Trade (TCCIA) said it regretted that border hurdles should continue to impact on trade.

“The trade hurdles between Tanzania and Kenya were sorted by our presidents. Yet we are now seeing long queues. We are surprised,” said Walter Maeda, TCCIA regional chair.

He told The Citizen yesterday that the chamber will send its official to Namanga today (Tuesday) to find out what was the problem.