Towards the Institutionalization of the Northern Corridor Stakeholders Consultative Forum

Public and Private Partnership in the Northern Corridor
The Northern Corridor Stakeholders Consultative Forum is a model of a Partnership that brings together Chief Executives from both the public and private sector in all the member states of the Northern Corridor. Stakeholders agreed to convene meeting periodically to review operational matters and to agree on practical solutions, which they then should implement.

As a consultative group, the Forum has been instrumental in promoting dialogue between corridor stakeholders as well as facilitating the use of harmonized procedures and documents in transport operations along the Northern Corridor with the aim to reducing the transit times and transport costs.

It should also be noted that the establishment of the Forum was linked to the fact that some of the contributory factors to the problems faced along the Northern Corridor required interventions, in a proactive manner, involving public and private sector stakeholders, in order to remove obstacles to movement of cargo.

Origin of the Northern Corridor Stakeholders
It should be recall that the formation of the Northern Corridor Stakeholders Consultative Forum in 1999 was spearheaded by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and Kenya Railways Corporation against the background of the low off take of the then increasing volumes of landlocked counties of Central and Eastern Africa cargo passing through the port of Mombasa.

The aim of the initiative was to strategize how to facilitate the movement the cargo which was causing congestion at the port in the view of poor railway services at the time. Specifically, the Forum was borne out of the need to respond to emerging issues affecting the smooth movement of transit traffic along the corridor with a view to determining timely and viable solutions.

A few years later, the Forum expanded its involvement with other stakeholders as it became clear that some of the major bottlenecks to corridor operations, particularly at the port, were created by the stakeholders themselves as in practice they did not clear their cargo timely, and that many of them engaged unprofessional clearing agents with little financial standing to effect transit bond requirements.

Facilitation of the transit operations by the Stakeholders
As Port issues were being streamlined, attention became focused on transit facilitation issues, particularly those related to the administration of Customs regulations and procedures. It was considered that the Kenya Revenue Authority was the major player with regard to these issues; accordingly it assumed the chairmanship of the Forum. The chairman has been supported by the Permanent Secretariat who has also over the years taken measures to institutionalize the involvement of the private sector in its structure.

Institutionalization of the Consultative Forum
The newly concluded Northern Corridor Agreement (NCA) has specified the Forum as one of the organs of the renamed Northern Corridor Co-ordination Authority (NCCA) to carry out the following functions:

1. Identify existing problems within their areas of operation and solve them;
2. Consolidate views and put forward recommendations to the Permanent Secretariat for onward transmission to the Executive committee for review and consideration by the Council of Ministers; and
3. Facilitate implementation of decision of organs of the Authority options.

These functions clearly indicate that the overall objective of the Forum is to facilitate the traffic and work towards the reduction of delivery times of cargo between the Port of Mombasa and respective member states of the corridor with a view to reducing the costs of transport and make economies of the member states more competitive in the international markets.

The Forum will have linkages to National Trade and Transport Facilitation Committees established in the member states, whose main functions are to ensure the implementation of the decisions of the Authority at the national level and identify interregional issues of concern which they forward to the Forum for deliberations.

Resolutions of the last Meeting of the Forum
The problems which the Forum has addressed since its inception are generally of two fold in nature:

• Operational issues, and
• Policy issues

The last meeting of the Northern Corridor Stakeholders’ Forum, which was held on July 9th to 10th 2008 in Mombasa, Kenya under the sponsorship the Kenya Ports Authority, had brought together participants included public and private sector representatives from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. In addition, there were representatives of NCTTCA cooperation and development partners, including COMESA, PMAESA, ISCOS and USAID/East Africa.

1. With regard to security problems which affect transit cargos at the port of Mombasa and in the Northern Corridor, the Meeting has requested the TTCA Permanent Secretariat to make the necessary arrangements to convene a special meeting on the transit cargo safety within a month
2. The Meeting noted that the institutionalization of the Consultative Forum is a process that requires in-depth consultations.
3. The participants commended the efforts made by KPA and KRA to ease the customs formalities on transit cargos at the port of Mombasa and appealed to stakeholders to support the efforts as well.
4. The Meeting has requested KRA to link the Simba 2005 System to the railways offices where the joint controls are taking place.
5. The Meeting has requested URA to look into the possibility of easing the congestion in the joint control offices and if possible to carry out some office renovation at Malaba in order to rellocate the payment of customs fees counter on import be done at different location.
6. KRC and URC representatives have contributed by talking about the current and future perspectives regarding the railways and the resumption of Kampala-Kasese railway in order to facilitate the exploitation of resources in this part of the region. The Meeting also took note of the railway master plan study executed under the East African Community programme
7. The Meeting commended the Northern Corridor Stakeholders’ initiatives on the use of the New Information and Communication Technologies and recommended the holding of a meeting of Computer experts to harmonize the exchange of information.
8. In order to comply with the business practices stipulated in the Incoterms 2000, the Meeting recommended that transit cargos should not be transferred anymore into the Mombasa container depots to avoid any additional charges and losses on these cargos.
9. Concerning the issuing of License to Inter-states Transit Cargos Transporters, the Meeting noted the discrepancy between the COMESA provisions and the East African Community Management Act and recommended that a meeting be convened between TTCA, COMESA and the EAC to consider and harmonize their respective rules and regulations to that effect.

More detailed information about the deliberations of the Forum are contained in the Minutes of the meeting.

The Forum has been very instrumental in streamlining many aspects of transit transport operations along the Northern Corridor.