Kenya’s big headache over border with Ethiopia

Lack of adequate customs and border control offices along the Ethiopia-Kenya borders has continued to pose key challenges in preventing illicit trade and disrupting transnational smuggling operations.

Marsabit Border Patrol Unit Commander John Mathiu told nation.africa during an interview that they face a formidable challenge in disrupting illicit trade flows and dismantling organisations involved in smuggling operations and at the same time securing the borders.

“We face a huge task in combating illicit trade activities along the Ethiopia-Kenya border due to inadequate custom and border control offices,’’Mr Mathiu.

He held that maintaining the delicate balance between facilitating legitimate trade flows while concurrently deterring those that are illicit is a complex operational task.

Kenya and Ethiopia share a long porous border, straddling a length of 861km that traverses Marsabit, Turkana, Wajir and Mandera Counties on the Kenyan side, and Borana and Dawa zones on the Ethiopian side.

Sessi, Laga, Dukana, Forole, Sololo are among some of the areas marked for the notoriety of the illegal trades.

Mr Mathiu said that there was a need for an urgent bilateral agreement between the Ethiopia and Kenyan authorities to set up other two customs and border control offices in Illeret and Dukana.

He added that the citizens of the two nations living along the border had their hands tied as they could not trade freely because they were far away from the Moyale custom and border point.

Parallel mandate

National customs and border control agencies typically have a parallel mandate in which to facilitate the flows of licit and legal trade while concurrently deterring illicit and illegal trade.

He maintained that the application of the appropriate customs regime such as the disposal for local sales, customs warehousing, temporary importation and customs transit was required.

He explained that customs and border control agencies conduct own operations to stop and deter illicit trade to minimise transnational smuggling operations, reduce the supply of contraband goods and disrupt criminal networks that have been thriving along the porous border points.

Dukana Sub-county Commissioner Solomon Mwapaple explained that illicit trade encompassed a diverse range of commodities and services that creates the formation of black markets along the Ethiopia-Kenya borders.

“Many cartels have been carrying out their activities through the porous border points thus evading tax and thorough scrutiny,” Mr Mwapapale.

Due to the secretive nature and lack of verifiable data on illicit trade, it is difficult to calculate with absolute precision the market size of trade carried out along the porous border points.

Not only is it easy to walk across undetected but at times small vehicles with contraband cargo also cross illegally via the undesignated routes.

He held that these illicit trade results in major financial and social costs to the two countries.

Cross-border smuggling is a logistics-intensive process that can be viewed as a core competency for transnational criminal organisations involved in illicit trade activities.

Clandestine transportation

Transnational smuggling involves the clandestine transportation and conveyance of illicit goods or people and illegal firearms across the borders.

Most of the smugglers along the Ethiopia-Kenya border use novel, flexible, stealthy logistics methods, assets, and systems to smuggle illegal goods across borders to avoid the risk of detection and apprehension.

The trafficking of narcotics such as bhang, shisha, and other psychoactive chemicals is a major business for transnational criminal organisations along the porous Ethiopia-Kenya borders.

The illicit narcotics trade had in the recent past imposed heavy health, social, and enforcement costs on society to Kenya.

The smuggling of migrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea has become a lucrative business for the criminal organisations operating along the border.

Additionally, to some extent, the environmental illicit trade involves the market exchange of endangered wildlife.

The endangered wildlife trade is diverse, ranging from live animals and plants to a vast array of wildlife products derived from them such as elephant tusks and animals body parts used for rituals by some communities, exotic leather goods, timber and medicines

The process by which the customs and border agencies achieve their objectives is through border interdiction, collection of information and intelligence, investigations into criminal networks and deployment of anti-smuggling technologies.

They also prosecute individuals associated with professional smuggling rings, facilitation of training and education, and the fostering of cooperation between international customs agencies.

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