9 October 2008
editorial
Nairobi — Kenya's strategic position as a regional hub for trade was seriously undermined by political turbulence in the first part of the year. It was soon realised that the country's supremacy on trade was tenuous and could easily disappear.
The country is the epicentre of regional trade because of Mombasa port. But the port relies on a single corridor for transit goods destined for the regional markets. When the Mombasa-Busia/Malaba highway was blocked by angry protesters, cross-border trade screeched to a halt.
The stark lesson was that it is perilous to depend on a single outlet for transit goods. This is precisely why the minister for East African Community, Mr Kingi Jeffah, has announced that the country will seek to open all four corridors linking it to other countries.
This is commendable. The Government is contemplating building road networks between Mombasa-Namanga-Arusha; Isiolo-Moyale-Ethiopia, and Nairobi and Lokichoggio to Southern Sudan. Not only will these routes open up trade between Kenya and its neighbours, it will also help develop the country's hinterland for local business.
Indeed, it is unfortunate that for all the 45 years of its independence, the country has done little to establish alternative road and rail networks to link it up to neighbouring countries that rely on Mombasa port.
The rail system put at the turn of the last century stuck on a single track to Kampala. No additional line has been extended in more than a century.
Not that the road situation is any better. The single corridor that traverses Nairobi is motorable only up to Nakuru. Thereafter, and all the way to Eldoret and Malaba or to Kisumu, it is in a horrible condition. Transporters take days navigating their trucks to the Busia or Malaba borders, occasioning high business costs.
With the expanded East Africa Community and new markets in Southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, Kenya must move quickly to establish efficient road and rail networks. As it does that, it must eliminate punitive tariffs and non-tariff obstacles to trade.
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