Trucks at Elegu border point (observer.ug)
South Sudan has slapped an annual fee of $100 (about Shs 360,000) and $30 (about Shs 108,000) "entry fee" on all vehicles that enter or exit the country.
The charges become effective March 1, 2022. The new charges threaten to again disrupt trade and travel between the country and its East African neighbours. The East African Business Council (EABC) has now petitioned South Sudan's ministry of Interior to ensure that vehicles from the EAC are exempted from these new charges.
According to South Sudan, the charges are "to enhance security measures at the border checkpoints by automated data collection, analysis, digital tagging and license plate recognition" but EABC says such high fees will affect trade and the general regional economic progress.
"The charges are exorbitantly high and will increase the cost of doing cross-border business in the EAC especially transportation and logistics costs as well as set back the efforts being made for the region to recover from the devastating effects of COVID-19," says EABC.
The new development takes business and movement of persons between South Sudan and the wider EAC a step back. In October last year, Uganda announced a $50 visa fee waiver for South Sudanese crossing the border, on condition that Juba reciprocated the move within 30 days (to which they agreed).
Currently, East Africans can drive private cars across borders in the EAC region without paying for visits that do not last more than seven days. However, this new move creates a new non-tariff barrier to regional trade which has remained at about 17 per cent, compared to trade within other blocs.
"Additionally, South Sudan's new charges contravene the spirit of the EAC Customs Union and Common Market protocols and thus impede the ease of doing business in South Sudan making products manufactured in the EAC bloc for export to South Sudan un-competitive," says the EABC petition.
In 2019, South Sudan exports to other EAC partner states reached $6.8 million, while imports reached $226 million, according to the EAC Trade and Investment report 2020. This was after trade and travel had been disrupted by fresh armed conflicts there, resulting in the killing of truck drivers and travellers to the country.
A repeat of such incidents last year prompted truckers to park their trucks at Elegu for weeks in protest before the government of South Sudan announced measures to protect truck drivers.
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