This archive report was first published on 17 September 2019.
As the East African Community (EAC) celebrates its intra-regional trade success, a ticking time bomb looms at the Kenya-Uganda borders of Busia and Malaba. Despite reforms and changes, including 24-hour border openings and One-Stop-Border-Posts (OSBPs), the queues of trucks waiting to clear Customs and other processes have grown to alarming lengths.
At Malaba, I witnessed an eight-kilometre-long queue of trucks on the Kenyan side waiting to enter Uganda, a significant reduction from the 20 kilometres it might have been without the reforms. Similarly, at the Busia border point, the queue was five kilometres long, with some days seeing queues longer than 10 kilometres.
With growing populations and increased trade, the border regimes are on the brink of collapse. In three to five years, the current system will be overwhelmed by truck volumes, causing congestion that will affect even passenger immigration processes.
East Africa is at a crossroads, having won a lottery in terms of trade and passenger volumes. However, if drastic measures are not taken to ease passage through the borders, especially at Busia and Malaba, the region's economic growth will be lost.
Imagine the nightmare it will be in just another five years if the Democratic Republic of Congo is ever admitted to the EAC, and South Sudan finds peace and gets to be led by enlightened chaps who engineer an economic turnaround there. These borders will simply melt down.
Immediate solutions include creating new and separate truck and passenger terminals, at least a kilometre apart, and building flyovers starting 20 kilometres out for passenger vehicles to the present OSBPs. Passengers crossing borders could stop at rooftop parking lots and climb downstairs into the immigration halls to get the stamp thing in their passports.
Ultimately, Uganda and Kenya will have to bite the bullet and get rid of the border apparatus between the two countries. The case for revival of the Kisumu port and Uganda's decision to build a new port in Bukasa, Wakiso, to circumvent the gridlock at Malaba and Busia, now seem quite compelling.
