(PDF, 101 mb) - USAID

heat;ive shikei
I * GIEflAL
Bef ore the break-Up of the East African Comunity, coraprioing
Uganda i enyja and Tanziaia, a predomi n -tnt part of Ugandala exportable
coffee was movud to Mombaua on tho' eat Afr ian railwaoy. Following
the brea:-up of the orirunity, an increasing part of Uganda'e
coffee for eLports began to be moved -to Nombasa by road, because
Uganda received an inUdequato share of the east African railway
corporationl' wagon fleet, whereas Kenya,unt-*l recently, maintainod
an unofficif4 one-for-one exchange syLotem for the EAC wagone and
did not alloc the wagons, which it bought after the division of the
E;&RC fleet, to croso the border. lcz),ya'o paratstal transport
company, Kemitco, and its e ib-contractors enjoyed almost I m,,n1opOlY
of Uganda' , cffe transport by rond, oince Transoceali, the Ugandarn
pUar.rtutattL t .ano3it-trtalt3lJOrt company was almot destroyed by the
looting of vbhicle- and dopots during wid after the liberation war.
Since coffee! provides the return load for Kenutco vehicles# a special
return freight rate hai been arranged. But it is still more than
50 per cent above the freight rate for coffee movement by rail-/
From ubout the r.iddle of 1981, Kenya seems to have relaxed the
restriotions on tho movement of ',A-J, wa2gons to Uganda, since it now
has sufficient atock under iti3 ecntrol, includinii tr-o large fWnumbor of
wagons purchased by it since the coll apne of the a-Lst African railway.
There has aso been ,t fuster turnaround of wagoflo, throug;h better
m,lnagoront , I)oth at 1;1orabaoa rind in Ulangnda. As ,L r(.sult o thoUGe
improverionts, the sh.re of ruilwayo in the movement of Uganda' s
coffee to Mombaa has recovered substantiaJly, at the expense of
movement by road.
These phases of the trends in movement of coffee by rail and
road for the i!eot decade or so are shown below.
/ See, " A preliminary asaiinont of the p.roblems potontittl
of the transit corridors in East-Central A frica: The northeru
transit corridor", UNCTAD project RAF/78/015 (Team leader: S3imon
Thomas), 11arch 1981.
72
.d