Expensive delays are going hand-in-hand with Covid-19 disruption on already time-consuming East Africa corridors from the Port of Mombasa into land-locked countries, costing transporters around US$200 on average.
That’s the view of Merci Ereri, chief operations officer at the Kenya Transporters’ Association.
Addressing a webinar hosted by the Trans-Kalahari Corridor Secretariat on the devastating impact of the coronavirus on sub-Saharan logistics, Ereri shared some alarming revelations with freight representatives from across the spectrum.
She said compared to the pre-Covid situation, transit time for truck traffic from port to destination, including turnaround and return-trip arrivals, had more than doubled in some respects.
Whereas it used to take eight to 10 days for road freight to make its way from Mombasa to Bujumbura and back again, the post-Covid impact on that linkage that Burundi has with the nearest functional port has at least doubled – to 20-21 days.
Round-journey road freight from Mombasa heading towards Juba in South Sudan is even worse affected – taking 25-26 days compared to the eight to 10 days it used to take.
The corridor from the port to Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is as nightmarish if not more so.
“On average a driver spends three days at the borders waiting to cross to another country with his load,” Ereri said.
“This delay is mostly experienced at the Malaba border (Kenya-Uganda) and Mpondwe (Uganda-DRC). In extreme cases, transporters have had to wait for up to 15 days at the Mpondwe border before being allowed to cross.”
“Looking on the bright side,” Ereri added, “opportunities have also presented themselves during this time of the pandemic. The use and adoption of ICT services and infrastructure is coming out very
