The Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) is seeking a bidder to construct Gatuna One Stop Border Post (OSBP), a development that is expected to significantly ease business movement between Rwanda and Uganda.

The $15 million (Rwf10.7 billion) project will be funded by World Bank, and is expected to be completed within nine months after the award of the contract. Part of the money will be used for the Akagera navigability for water transport, which is under study.

RTDA wants international bidders to construct the facility that is under the East Africa trade and transport facilitation project. Deadline for submission of bids is March 17.

The OSBP project will consist of administrative buildings for immigration department, clearing agents, Rwanda Development Board, Rwanda Standards Board, Police, private sector and Rwanda Agriculture Board. It will also include a control shed for cargo control, verification storage, a parking yard and a road joining the two countries, François Nivugo Gihoza, the regional integration programme manager at RTDA, said.

He said the Gatuna OSBP will ease movements, allowing traders to clear their goods in a short time compared to the present arrangement. He explained that under the initiative, customs officials from both Uganda and Rwanda will be stationed on either side of the border when the OSBP starts operations. 

"A process that used to take up to two hours, will take 15 minutes. If one truck saves two hours, and with about 200 trucks crossing the border, this will be a lot of time saved, a situation that could impact the economy positively,” he said.

He added that delays at border posts affect business activities.

The government wants to set up OSBP at various borders to facilitate economic exchange between countries, and ease movement of goods, services and people.

Gihoza said works on the Kagitumba OSBP are ongoing, as well as Gisenyi’s La Coloniche and Cyanika, which are still under the study phase.

There are already OSBPs at Nemba in Bugesera District and Ruhwa in Rusizi District, linking Rwanda and Burundi, and the Rusumo OSBP (Rwanda-Tanzania) that was inaugurated one month ago.

Truckers happy with OSBPs

Jean Mary Vianney Nkundiye, the vice-president of the Association of Truck Drivers in Rwanda (ACPLRWA), said the already-established OSBPs have greatly eased movement of goods and people.

"It used to take between three and five hours for one to clear a cargo truck, but now it takes between 30 and one hour at a OSBP. However, there is still a problem of lack of internet network as the goods are entered in the computer system to track the cargo both in the country of departure and destination,” he said.

He said the cargo tracking system helps customs officials to match goods listed on documents presented by truckers with those in the database, which makes it easy to clear them at the OSBPs.

Ramazan Rukundo, a truck driver, told Business Times that before the OSBP they could even stay the whole day at the border waiting for their cargo to be cleared.

Truck drivers, however, said there is lack of enough parking space which forces them to drive back waiting for clearance.

Benjamin Gasamagera, the chairman of Private Sector Federation (PSF), said OSBPs have started yielding results by reducing delays in business procedures and easing movements "as clearing agents at both sides of the border work together in harmony”.

Nathan Gashayija, the Director General Coordination of East African Community Affairs at the Ministry of East African Community, said the main objective of OSBPs is to speed up movements of people and goods as they reduce clearance time and the cost of doing business.