All countries in the East Africa Community (EAC) will have to comply with the EAC ministerial decision to remove road blocks and replace them with electronic cargo tracking systems and police patrols. The change must take place by December 2012.

This was decided at the EAC ministerial meeting held earlier this year.

There were many key decisions made during the meeting such as the plan to reduce roadblocks in the Northern and Central corridor from 36 to 5 in Kenya, 30 to 15 in Tanzania while Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi will do away with them completely.

This alteration should drastically reduce congestion and ease the process of moving goods across borders.

With regards to weighbridges, it was said that vehicles will be weighed twice from the port of entry and port of exit for Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

There could possibly be more good news for truckers as it was stated that trucks entering Tanzania should not be charged $200 dollars. There has not been a final decision on this as of yet.