KAMPALA, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Uganda has warned both local and cross-border haulers that they risk paying high fines if found guilty of loading their trucks beyond the required limit.

A joint statement by the Ministry of Works and Transport and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives said starting Friday, all transporters whose trucks are found to be overloaded will be required to pay all the overloading fines in full before the trucks are released.

The statement said transporters who were found culpable previously could pay the fines in installments.

"The interest in imposing high overloading fees is not to collect revenue but to make sure that the fees levied clearly outweigh any cost benefit to the transporter to overload for commercial gain," the statement said.

"We are very optimistic that with these regulations, overloading of vehicles will soon be eliminated," the statement added.

According to Uganda's National Roads Authority, overloading damages roads and reduces their lifespan.

Roads in Uganda are built to last 15 years but the life span of some roads is reduced to as low as one year because of overloading.

The law compels truck drivers to observe an axle load limit of 56 tons and maximum seven axles for commercial trucks plying the regional road network.

The law says any truck in excess of 0.5 tons may be fined 90 U.S. dollars while those in excess of 31.5 tons (plus) may be fined 145,889 dollars.

Trucks transporting goods to or from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan transit through Uganda to the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa.