The EAC partner states of Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi finally agreed to adopt a gross vehicle weight of 56 tonnes over 7 axles for commercial transportation trucks. This happened at a meeting held in Nairobi last month, to harmonize axle load control laws and regulations in the region, after consultations between the permanent secretaries in charge of roads and infrastucture of the five states. The tonnage will however work well on vehicles of between 20-22 metres in length for efficient load distribution. This also means that some of the axles will not carry maximum weight.
Kenya has until now maintained a limit of 48 tonnes in a bid to protect its roads which carry most of the local and transit cargo moving on the roads to and from the port of Mombasa on the Northern Corridor. The country has invested approximately Ksh. 81 billion in road infrastructure which is being eroded by errant transporters who overload, and increasing the axle load limit would cost its taxpayers huge amounts of money in constructing roads afresh after only a few years.
When effected, this harmonization, complemented by the full implementation of the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) operations, has the potential to reduce logistics costs by up to 50% for the region. The agreement further constitutes a critical enabler in the implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol.
The second critical agreement by the Permanent Secretaries was the approval of the use of interlinked vehicles in the region’s gazetted transit corridors without the requirement for special permits. This type of vehicle is popular with transporters as it gives them flexibility in loading and therefore opportunities to optimize on costs of operations.
The process of harmonization of axle load control in the region started in 2001 with EAC commissioning various technical studies to try and get partner states to agree on harmonized standards. The current study by Padeco Ltd that commenced in January 2011 was approved by the Council of Ministers to harmonize the previous divergent positions and propose legal, institutional and operational frameworks to implement harmonized standards. The study is financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with other components financed by the African Development Bank under the Trade and Transport Facilitation Project- regional components.
