Kenya in tight spot as EAC raises axle-load limit to 56 tonnes
A police officer mans the Mariakani weighbridge. FILE
What you need to know:
Official says change from 48 tonnes would be considered after completion of southern bypass.
The maximum gross vehicle weight on Kenyan roads is currently 48 tonnes.
A new law passed by the East African Legislative Assembly has set the stage for a fresh round of confrontation between truck drivers and Kenyan authorities over axle load limits.
The Vehicle Load Control Bill 2012 passed on Wednesday evening would raise the maximum gross vehicle weight on roads of member countries to 56 tonnes.
“This will lead to efficient and effective control of vehicle overloading in the region as a basis for reducing accelerated deterioration of road networks and transport costs,” East African Community (EAC) council of ministers chairman Shem Bageine said in a statement.
The maximum gross vehicle weight on Kenyan roads is currently 48 tonnes.
If the Bill is endorsed by the heads of state in their November summit, the 56 tonnes will be spread over seven axles while Kenya requires the 48-tonne weight to sit on eight axles.
The 56-tonne limit is already in use in Uganda and Tanzania while landlocked Rwanda and Burundi have expressed no objection to adjusting from their 53-tonne ceiling.
Kenya, whose Northern Corridor bears the brunt of bulk freight to the landlocked countries, has been reluctant to support the Bill.
Its restrictive weight limit has of late caused frequent strikes and court battles between truck drivers on one side and the police and Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) officials on the other, most recently at the Mariakani weighbridge.
Kenya arrests and fines truck drivers including those that comply with its 48-tonne overall weight rule when the number of axles is exceeded. Overloading on Kenyan roads currently attracts fines of up to Sh200,000 on first conviction and Sh400,000 for repeat offences.
“A vehicle not only has to fall within the maximum gross weight limit but also none of its axles should weigh more than eight tonnes,” KeNHA director-general Meshack Kidenda said a week ago.
However, Mr Kidenda handed a 90-day grace period to truck drivers during which those who meet maximum gross vehicle weight would be allowed to redistribute weight on overloaded axles before being issued with compliance certificates.
Due to an underperforming rail system, 97 per cent of the national and region-bound cargo is transported by road, implying higher cost of maintenance to the country.
“I would be happy to see a situation where the rail network also becomes functional,” said Kenya’s East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) member Abubakar Zein Abubakar.
KeNHA said the 56-tonne limit would be considered after completion of the southern bypass in 2015 to allow trucks from Mombasa Road to connect to Nakuru Highway via Kibera slums, Ngong Forest, Dagoretti, Thogoto, Alliance High School and Gitaru.
The Bill comes just weeks after the EALA passed another Bill which seeks to reduce the number of weighbridges in each country to only two—one at entry and another at cargo’s exit point.
Kenya Ports Authority data shows Uganda, Kenya’s top export destination, dominates the 4.85 million tonnes of cargo shipped through Mombasa port in 2012, representing 73.1 per cent of the total transit traffic.
Over the same period, South Sudan, an emerging economy that portends heavy use of northern corridor in the coming years, transported 766,656 tonnes or 11.6 per cent of 2012 transit traffic, followed by DR Congo with a total of 482,358 tonnes (6.3 per cent).
