This archive report was first published on 9 May 2020.
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread across East Africa, the region's border points have become a hotbed of confusion and logistical nightmares.
On May 9, 2020, The EastAfrican reported on the chaos that erupted at East Africa's border points, highlighting the consequences of a discordant approach to the pandemic and the relative lack of depth of regional mechanisms.
According to the report, Tanzanian long-distance drivers forced a closure of their country's common border with Rwanda as they protested over Kigali's introduction of a relay system for long-distance commercial truckers.
The relay system required a crew change at the common border, where inbound or transit cargo would have to be offloaded, warehoused, and then transferred to Rwandan transporters for onward delivery.
Meanwhile, on the Kenya-Uganda border, queues of trucks stretched back 40 kilometres as drivers waited to go through sample collection for Covid-19 tests.
Both approaches have created a logistical nightmare and conditions that could actually aid the spread of the coronavirus among crews.
Rwanda and Uganda are apprehensive about their neighbours to the East and South, as routine testing has revealed more positives among long-distance drivers than from within the local communities.
East African cooperation is in peril, with members having over time slowly digressed from their commitments.
The failure to write a common manual for management emanates from a crisis of trust and the failure to add fidelity to the systems that are supposed to entrench economic cooperation.
Under normal circumstances, a certificate of health, issued by any of the member states, should be trusted by all the others.
However, the current standoff is unwarranted, unproductive, and will only inflict long-term harm on the business community who are the real engines of the regional economy.
President Yoweri Museveni has argued correctly that it would be suicidal to close borders to commerce, as export and import trade is still a critical lifeline to the regional economy.
