Heads of delegation at the ongoing meeting of the Central Corridor in Kigali have commended the political will in the region to purge trade barriers along the passage connecting Tanzania’s Port of Dar es Salaam to four other member states.

The meeting has brought together over 50 participants from the public and private sectors of Burundi, DR Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Benjamin Mbimbi, an official from Tanzania’s ministry of Transport, said his government will not leave any stone unturned as it continues to improve transport infrastructure and services so as to reduce transport costs.

"We acquired new wagons and this has greatly improved the reliability and efficiency of our central railway network. After the presidential round-table in Dar es Salaam, in March, we’ve commenced the block trains from Dar es Salaam to Isaka, Mwanza and Kigoma, with cargo destined to Uganda, DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi,” Mbimbi said.

Tanzania’s intention, he said, is to have one block train "for each country, per week.”

A block train, also called a unit train or a trainload service, is a train in which all wagons carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route.

Mbimbi said his government has also contained cargo theft at the port.

However, he acknowledged, there is room for improvement and he hopes all members states will "join hands” to implement planned activities.

Burundi’s Vital Narakwiye stressed that, for his landlocked country, the Central Corridor is a route of vast importance, particularly as it is where 75 per cent of its imports and exports pass.

"That is basically why Burundi will do everything possible to see that this route functions efficiently,” Narakwiye said.

"We want to see the Central Corridor competitive and its various projects completed and not just plans on paper.”

Private sector upbeat

John Masasi, the marketing manager of Tanzania international container terminal services, at the port of Dar es Salaam says he has attended all previous meetings, adding that he observes much progress especially after seeing "a lot of commitments at the presidential level.”

"We now see commitment to the construction of a standard gauge railway which we had not seen before. And there are other initiatives such as reducing non-tariff barriers, reducing weighbridges, and all these are positive developments we appreciate,”he told The New Times.

As they meet for the eighth time, however, Masasi said that one particular issue he wanted to see happen is the five member states’ governments "becoming one” or planning in unison.

Every country has its individual development plans but, to succeed there must be some serious degree of central planning and implementation, he said.

Masasi added: "Becoming one in terms of trade facilitation, from the mindset up to the point of implementation, because we have been discussing so many issues but when it comes to implementation, you find that there is some sort of dragging.’’

Speaking for Uganda’s private sector, Kassim Omar, director of the East African Business Council (EABC) in Kampala, told this paper that the Central Corridor is an alternative route for Uganda. However, he added, it would be a "very viable route” for as long as there are incentives and improvements as far as the business networks and road and rail infrastructure are concerned.

Omar said: "There should be a mechanism to provide incentives that will accommodate the extra distance that is a major impediment to the usage of the Central Corridor. This corridor is more than 500 kilometers longer than the Northern Corridor.

"The other incentive in the area of infrastructure should be an improvement in railway haulage because the port of Mombasa(Kenya) along the Northern Corridor, indeed, is very efficient but there are regular congestions and, at the moment, port tariffs are much higher than on Central Corridor.”

Nonetheless, Omar said, there is a lot of progress in resolving problems, a lot of change and improvement on the Central Corridor.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw