Early last month, Rwanda’s minister of commerce along with other delegates, proposed and later on agreed to divert some imports and exports through the Port of Dar- es-Salaam, Tanzania.

Rwanda’s commerce minister Protais Mitali and his Tanzanian counterpart Basil Mramba subsequently signed an agreement that will see Rwanda channel some of its imports and exports through Dar-es-Salaam port.

But according to Mitali, the decision to change the route was not only related to the fuel shortage in Rwanda— brought about by the Kenya’s political impasse. It was a coincidence. Rwanda had earlier started a move to improve its trade ties with Tanzania.

Mitali was also backed by his Tanzania counterpart Basil Mramba when he said that, "Rwanda is seeking full utilisation of the central corridor—Dar es Salaam-Kigoma, Burundi-to-Rwanda, to improve trade, business and investment sectors".

This means that Kenya’s cargo handlers stand to lose substantial business following this decision to move some petroleum products and other imports through Tanzania’s main port. Most of imports to Rwanda are handled at Mombasa port.

But Rwanda as a landlocked country is disadvantaged and has always looked for shorter distances to the main ports, and Dar-es-salaam offers a good alternative. The Dar-es-salaam port is nearer Kigali.

Haulers say it is shorter by 300 kilometres.

The railway route too, is under way and a connection to Rwanda through Isaka in Tanzania of about 450 kilometres will be in place soon. The railway creates a tantalisingly short distance and thus is expected to help reduce transport costs, increase exports and imports.

This "Central Corridor" as it is called would further have the advantage of reducing the number of border crossings, as it would simply be Rwanda and Tanzania. But using the Northern Corridor which is Kigali-Kampala-Nairobi-Mombasa, is time wasting and expensive. It is also said that Tanzania is offering some tax incentives on goods meant for re-export through Dar-es-Salaam ports, unlike the Mombasa port that has upfront tax payment systems.

However, even though using Dar-es-Salaam port is an alternative to ensuring supply in Rwanda, business men prefer Mombasa.

According to Charles Gasana, a Rwandan textile importer; "Mombasa port is more efficient in clearing cargo compared to Dar-es-Salaam where it takes longer time. Tanzania however, steal beats Mombasa as it levies less transit charges. The central corridor has a lot of non-tariff barriers. I was robbed thrice—the few times I have imported through Tanzania, the axle load limit in Tanzania is low compared to Mombasa, which reduces on their levels of imports or else have one container divided into two," he lamented.

Mzee Nkusi a trailer driver too has his reservations; "the idea would be good considering the short distance but it is not viable because of the poor conditions of the Tanzanian roads.

Some areas of the corridor are feeder roads, which lengthens our time of transit to about 4 days yet the distance is short".

Justifiably enough, business operators from Rwanda and Tanzania in mid 2007 met to discuss challenges involved along the central corridor. And, the deputy director general of Tanzania Port Authority, Peter K. Mtandu, promised to address the challenges.

The hindrances to cross-border trade, other than the legal internal and external tariffs paid by importers and exporters have continued to slow business in the region. A survey carried out by the Private Sector Federation (PSF) conforms on both corridors says poor infrastructure; un-harmonised fees, duties, policies, rules and regulations; poor border facilitation that causes delays; corruption among traffic policemen and some customs officials were common on the routes.

According to the report, these barriers generally account for almost 40 per cent of transport costs. Therefore, for the two countries—Kenya and Tanzania to register more successes in trade, the bottlenecks especially non-tariff barriers have to be eased. For example if Tanzania can now calculate the potential it has, it can prioritise developing a road system/network with neighbours.

Some non tariff barriers along the northern corridor seem to be tolerable or getting better.

Rwandan businessmen say that the delays at the borders that were a problem before are now history following the computerisation of paper processing and cargo weighing. And above all, trade across the Kenya-Uganda borders seem to be normalising. "There are no signs of further crisis, "Patrick Mugwanya, a clearing agent at Malaba border post said.

Nonetheless, individual countries looking for their own alternative trade-routes, should pressure the East African Community to come in and seriously think of a reliable and integrated community transport system.

Ends