Last week, Rwanda launched The Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) which went up on March 24, and expects it to save on the cost and time of transporting cargo on the Northern Corridor.
Projections by Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) estimate that container transit time on the Northern Corridor to Kigali will go down by 35 percent from eight to three days and costs will go down by 15 percent.
For Uganda which officially launched it last month, the cost of transporting a 20ft container from the Mombasa Port to Kampala is down by 30 per cent, from $2.9 per kilo meter in 2010 to $2 per kilo meter in 2016.
For Kenya, the system was switched on in the first week of March this year.
RECTS is expected to help seal loopholes that lead to revenue losses through tax evasion. It will also eliminate the need for physical escort and monitoring of sensitive cargo such as batteries, fuel and cigarettes.
The system also eliminates the manual processes that has been applied before meaning more gains on the ease of doing business across borders.
