By Charles Kazooba
The East African Community (EAC) secretary
general, Dr. Richard Sezibera, launched Shippers Council of Eastern Africa
seeking to cover the challenges faced by the transport and logistics sector in
East Africa, EAC has said in a statement.
According to the release, the Council was
launched on Tuesday April 30 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Addressing members of the Eastern Africa
Shippers Community formerly known as Kenya Shippers Council, Sezibera commended
the Council for rising up to the occasion and respond to the calls of East
Africans to finally form a localized organization to generalized regional
umbrella body.
He noted that it was critical for the EAC
region to invest heavily in rehabilitating and expanding railway systems for
goods it is cheaper, cost-effective, competitive and efficient than road
transport.
The official continued that such will shift a
significant amount of cargo to railways and guarantee longer life spans for
newly constructed and rehabilitated roads as well as also improve the
environment by reducing carbon emission.
“Currently, less than 5% of cargo in East
Africa is moved by rail. No economy has grown without rail transport,” Sezibera
said, adding cargo in the region is going to triple in the next 15 years.
The change to Shippers Council
for Eastern Africa (SCEA) is necessitated by the need to expand the scope and
mandate of the Kenya Shippers Council (KSC) to cover the challenges facing the
transport and logistics in the Eastern Africa region due to the conclusion by
various studies conducted in the region which have showed that 60 per cent of
the challenges experienced by shippers in the region emanate from the borders
of Kenya.
The rebranding is also
precipitated by the fact that 70 per cent of its members have operations within
the region.
Moreover, there arose a need
to strategically align the Council to engage the policy formulators and
industry regulators at the regional level as there is a need for harmonization
of smoother flow of goods and trade within the region, an important step as we
transit to a unitary customs union.
SCEA will be targeting
membership from the region in the form of individual corporate and that of
national shippers council in the Eastern African countries
Some of the achievements of
the KSC that the new brand will ride on include successful lobbying for the
formation of KENTRADE, the entity tasked with implementing the National Single
Window System and the subsequent implementation of the system, engaging
government agencies and service providers in the past on removal of vessel
delay surcharges and decongestion of the sea port, removal of VAT on marine
services and numerous police road blocks on the Northern Corridor amongst
others, thereby helping to reduce delays and resultant costs in movement of
goods.
The council was also
instrumental in the establishment of regulations for maritime service providers
through the Merchant Shipping Act of 2009
The Shippers Council of
Eastern Africa’s mandate will be to advocate for an improved policy and trade
environment, educate shippers on their rights and obligations in import and
export trade, interpret various transport and logistics related laws,
regulations and procedures, and provide a platform for sharing experiences
through networking forums, and training and awareness workshops.
kazcharlie@yahoo.com
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