Mobile weighbridges to enforce EAC axle load

Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) will this week deploy mobile weighbridges on national routes to protect the roads against wear and tear caused by overloaded trucks.Apparently, the two machines are now stationed at the RTDA laboratory and, according to an official, they intend to first deploy one of the machines along the Kigali-Gatuna highway where the problem of overloading is common.The other road is one connecting Bugarama–Rusizi which proceeds to Burundi where most trucks ferrying cement are said to overlord, which impacts on the road maintenance activities.No axle load weighbridges“The mobile weighbridges are ready and we are now focusing on the roads that are most affected. We intend also to start an awareness campaign during the same week to sensitise transporters to avoid overloading,” Theophile Dusabe, the acting head of maintenance division at RTDA, said.The country has not had weighbridges before and truckers, especially those transporting transit goods from Mombasa and Dar es Salaam ports are accused of taking advantage of this to overload their vehicles.Last year, a consensus was reached among the five member-states of the East African Community setting 56 tonnes as the maximum weight a transit truck is supposed to load, but the implementation of this limit remains a challenge.Only Kenya has revised its law to implement the agreed axle load law.According to Dusabe, the machine has two flat plates where the truck passes and it immediately indicates the weight of the vehicle, and this takes a short time to ensure that the trucks are not delayed.The initiative will be implemented in collaboration with Rwanda Revenue Authority and Rwanda National Police. Legal limboMeanwhile, Dusabe said much as they are introducing these facilities, enforcement will be hard because the law is yet to be revised to facilitate the implementation of the axle load set under the EAC framework.He said until the law is revised, they will only have to have the trucks that exceed the set load to offload with no punishment meted out. Along the Northern Corridor, Kenya has four stationery weighbridges, while Uganda still has five, which have been identified as non-tariff barriers since they create congestion during the process of weighing.Ben Kagarama, the commissioner general of Rwanda Revenue Authority said that the mobile weighbridges will create efficiency in the transportation of goods and time saving.“The current stationery weighbridges create congestion on the roads since many trucks have to park and wait to be weighed, which hinders the free movement of goods along the corridor. We want to facilitate the traders as well as maintain our roads,” Kagarame said.Last week, during last week’s Infrastructure Summit in Kigali, heads of state of three countries using the Northern Corridor signed a communiqué urging the three countries Kenya Uganda and Rwanda to eliminate the remaining non-tariff barriers with immediate effect.They further agreed that transit cargo be equipped with electronic tracking devices by January 2014, for ease of monitoring along the corridor as well as comply with the instructions that transit cargo will be weighed once at the point of entry into each member state territory.With the implementation of harmonised axle load control, the member states are likely to save over $1 billion annually, according to the EAC deputy secretary-general, Dr Enos Bukuku.“By harmonising the approach to axle load control to allow for maximum of 56 tonnes per truck across the region, we shall remove costly logistics burden from the operators and investors in the region and save the region over one billion dollars annually,” Bukuku said during a recent meeting in Nairobi.