Daniel Katana, a long-distance truck driver left Mombasa in late November with one mission, to deliver a 40-foot container of imported goods to Lubumbashi in DR Congo, a distance of about 2,382 kilometres.
Having been into DRC before, he knew it would be weeks if not months before he was back in Kenya.
Katana arrived at Mpondwe, one of the three busiest border crossings between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about a week after setting off his journey.
By the time he was at the border, it was also about a week to the general elections in DRC, held on December 20.
Clearance was a major issue at the border according to Katana, who says it took him up to four days before he finally crossed into DRC.
However, border clearance was not the only challenge as he arrived at a time when the Mpondwe bride had collapsed, paralysing cross-border movement.
“We were forced to navigate through other routes around the border with most of them not meant for trucks but only serve pedestrians and boda bodas,” Katana who is still in the DRC narrated during a phone call with Star.
He is yet to get out of the country as he navigates his way back through vast DRC, where bad roads have hampered movement in many parts of the country.
Katana is among the more than 1,000 truck drivers who got stuck in Fataki, Bunia and Mahagi areas of Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since December, as roads in the region remain impassable.
For *Saidi, a driver with a leading transporter in Kenya, he left the country in late December for Kinshasa and he is yet to make a round trip, with the December elections, insecurity and poor roads being the major challenges he has faced to date.
“Coming to DRC is not for the fainthearted. Lazima uwe ngangari (You must be brave),”he says.
According to Saidi, you are not assured of the timelines, as most of the roads are bot tarmacked, meaning any heavy rains will get you stuck.
“The weather is very unpredictable as heavy rains pound the forest regions anytime,” Saidi told the Star.
Currently, the rainfall is twice the average of what was recorded between 2022 and 2023,with the floods having destroyed or damaged roads, health facilities, schools and thousands of houses, according to the latest World Health Organisation update.
Cargo trucks have also been stuck for almost two months along the Gina-Pimbo road in Djugu territory in Ituri.
“We have fuel, food commodities, dry cargo, reefers and other assortments of goods,” Katana told us, “ It is also a dangerous situation because drivers are using gas to cook yet fuel tankers are right there.”
Public transport operators and private cars are also affected.
“We don’t know exactly when we will get back home,” Saidi said.
According to local news outlets, since the General Directorate of Revenue of the Province of Ituri (DGRPI) took over maintenance, roads in the region have deteriorated further.
Previously, the National Road Maintenance Fund (FONER) managed the roads.
Truck drivers, not only from Kenya, but the region, are also exposed to rebels attacks.
For instance in October last year, a Kenyan truck driver was among five people killed in an ambush carried out by a rebel group associated with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
Barthelemy Kambale, a North Kivu provincial civil servant who spoke to the press at the time, said the rebel group initiated an ambush at a parking lot in Kasindi, Beni territory.
The biggest headache for truckers and transporters however remains the state of infrastructure in DRC, which sprawls over 905,000 square miles.
About 63 years after independence, the second largest country in Africa which formerly joined the East African Community (EAC) in on April 8, still has few roads connecting one end of the country to the other.
“There are no roads in Congo (DRC) but people are forced to go because goods still have to be delivered. The biggest challenge is you cannot plan or know how many days of when you will get there and return,” Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers Association (LDTDA), Secretary-General, Nicholas Mbugua said during an interview with the Star.
According to Mbugua, coming back is also not a guarantee mainly as a result of insecurity.
“You go knowing the risks, if you come back, it is fine,” he said.
According to the association’s chairman Kabeberi Hassan, the situation in DRC is “a year-in-year out” thing, which exposes drivers to security risks, mental torture and high costs, with little help going the drivers’ way.
“They can only get lucky when for instance the Chinese doing projects in the country go to rescue their stuck vehicles. That is the only chance to get pulled out with the caterpillars,” Hassan noted, “Going into DRC has become a headache where drivers don’t know when they well be back home.”
The long turnaround time also comes with a major implication on operating costs for transporters, with the Port of Mombasa being a major facility serving the EAC through the Northern Corridor.
The 1,700 kilometre-long corridor that runs between Mombasa (Kenya), Uganda Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC, and remains the busiest and most preferred route connecting the landlocked countries to the maritime transport in global trade.
According to transporters, it costs at least $247 (about Sh38, 000) per truck per day when it remains stuck on the roads.
With up to 1,500 trucks stuck over the December period, it means transporters were incurring costs of up to Sh57 million per day. This translates to about Sh1.7 billion per month.
Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) and the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa (SCEA) have both raised concerns over the situation in DRC, calling for a solution.
They want the road network improved, failure to which, transporters would avoid the landlocked country, a move that will hurt trade.
"These poor road conditions lead to delayed cargo deliveries and result in losses for many transporters,” KTA chief executive Mercy Ireri said.
The delays have also exposed importers and traders to demurrage charges on delayed return of containers, shippers said.
Demurrage refers to the charge that the merchant pays for the use of the container beyond the free time period.
Demurrage now amounts to an average of $70(about Sh10, 885) per day, per container, but varies on the shipping line.
The Shippers Council has called on the EAC leaders to improve the infrastructure to improve trade in the region, terming the situation in DRC “unfortunate.”
“The AfCFTA leadership must also prioritise infrastructure improvement to aid the objectives of the agreement. It is estimated that USD 247, 000 is direct lost per day not forgetting the hardship and pain the truck drivers face,” SCEA said.
DRC is the third biggest transit destination for cargoes coming in through the Port of Mombasa, accounting for 7.2 per cent of total volumes, according to Kenya Ports Authority.
Uganda leads with a an 83.2 per cent share followed by South Sudan with 9.9 per cent, while Tanzania and Rwanda account for 3.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively.
Poor infrastructure in DRC is seen as a setback to trade, where Kenya and other regional markets are keen to tap into the 81 million people market, under the EAC common market protocol.
Top EAC exports to DRC include lime and cement, iron and steel, tobacco, beverages, spirits and vinegar, animal or vegetable fats and oils, wheat gluten, sugars and confectionery, plastics and soap, among other products.
Imports include wood, plants, seeds, fruits, re-melting scraps of iron or steel, and natural sands.
