UGANDA RE-ROUTES COFFEE EXPORTS THROUGH KISUMU
Long delays at the railway crossing on
the Kenyan border have led Uganda to re-route its coffee
exports through a ferry link with the Kenyan port of Kisumu
across Lake Victoria, Ugandan officials based in Kenya said.
    Uganda has a direct rail link with the Kenyan port of
Mombasa through which it conducts 70 pct of its external trade
but there is a chronic shortage of railway wagons, they said.
    Customs at Kisumu take less than a day compared with two to
three at the Malaba rail border crossing, a Ugandan Railways
official said. "Malaba is now handling only 10 pct of the trade
and all the coffee and oil goes through Kisumu," he said.
    However, an accident recently damaged the wagon ferry which
plies between Kisumu and the Ugandan port of Jinja, causing
bottlenecks on the lake route too.
    Sources at the Coffee Marketing Board in Kampala reported
delays in coffee export shipments last January due to
congestion on the lake ferries.
    Coffee accounts for about 95 pct of Uganda's export
earnings and last November President Yoweri Museveni ordered
all coffee shipments to be carried by rail in order to avoid
the higher costs of road haulage.
 Reuter
