Kenya’s road transport is ranked the third most ‘open’ among the eight partner States of the East African Community (EAC), trailing Rwanda and Burundi, a joint scorecard by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) showed.
The Services Trade Restrictions Index (STRI) by the World Bank and WTO measures regulatory barriers in road freight services and their hindrance to market access.
The index scores Kenya at 30.4 points out of 100 compared to Rwanda (21), Burundi (28), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (42.3). Others are Somalia (42.9), South Sudan (46.9), Uganda (48.7), and Tanzania (49.6). A score of zero means that a transport corridor is completely open while 100 means it is completely closed.
“There can be regulatory obstacles to driving freight across Africa. For example, road transport drivers may face restrictions on cabotage, limits on the number of days they can stay in a transit country, and in some instances, a total prohibition on providing services,” Cloé Torbay, a consultant with the World Bank, and Martha Denisse Pierola, an economist with a multilateral lender, said in a commentary.
“These regulatory barriers can vary significantly across countries. Algeria, Cameroon, Guinea, Lesotho, Libya, Mali and Zambia record the highest indices in STRI for road freight services, signalling the most restrictive regimes.”
According to the STRI, Libya and Lesotho have the most restricted road freight services in Africa at 100 percent, while Guinea-Bissau has the most open services at 25.4. Other nations with relatively open road transport include Benin (25.7), Namibia (28.2), Zimbabwe (33.8), Liberia (33.8), South Africa (36.1), Senegal (36.4) and Chad (37.1).
“Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and several West African economies maintain relatively open road freight services regimes, reflected in low STRIs. The result is a continent where open and restrictive economies often sit within the same regional economic communities, share land borders, and depend on the same transport corridors,” the World Bank duo observed.
“One restrictive link in a trade corridor can shape an entire route. For instance, the North-South Corridor connects South Africa and Zimbabwe (relatively open) with Zambia (relatively closed). Longer routes, such as the Dakar–N’Djamena–Djibouti Corridor, also move across economies with very different levels of openness.”
The State Department for East African Community (EAC) Affairs in Kenya plans to roll out reforms to restore the efficiency and competitiveness of the Northern Corridor by eliminating costly non-tariff barriers as part of a plan to sharpen the country’s competitiveness.
The plan includes slashing police roadblocks from more than 20 to less than five, halving transit time between Mombasa and Malaba, strengthening security response, and fixing persistent ICT system failures that have slowed cargo clearance.
The planned reforms will be implemented in coordination with key agencies, including the Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, and the National Police Service, with a focus on enforcement discipline, system reliability, and faster response to security incidents.
Trade along the Northern Corridor, which connects other landlocked EAC member states from the Mombasa Port, is significantly hindered by various non-tariff barriers (NTBs), primarily involving transport inefficiencies, bureaucratic delays, and regulatory inconsistencies.
Despite efforts to resolve these issues, transport-based NTBs remain prevalent, directly inflating costs and extending transit times.
Some of the barriers highlighted by the Kenya School of Revenue Administration include multiple checkpoints, particularly in Kenya, which lead to prolonged delays and increased costs.
Others are highway crimes and theft of goods, poor road conditions in certain sections, and a lack of harmonised working hours at border posts, such as Malaba and Busia.
Delays in returning empty containers and inconsistent implementation of the Electronic Cargo Tracking System have also hindered efficient transit.
