Mombasa port sees rapid growth in trade

By ABDUL SAMAD ALI Special Correspondent

Despite struggling with congestion arising from non-movement of cargo due to the post-election violence in the country early this year, the port of Mombasa has recorded increased business for the first quarter.
According to a report by the Kenya Ports Authority, the port has seen a rise in cargo throughput in the three months of this year compared with last year’s performance.
Between January and March this year, the port handled a total of 4.2 million tonnes compared with 3.8 million tonnes over the same period last year.

This was an increase of 398,559 tonnes or 10.5 per cent.
However, the port’s delivery systems — road and railway — were still underperforming, with railway being the main culprit.
Importers, too, are still slow in clearing and removing cargo from the port.
During the crisis the port handled over 17,000 containers stretching the facility’s capabilities. Its capacity is 14,000 twenty foot equivalent units (teu).
This forced the authority to partner with container freight stations to store some of the containers.

KPA managing director Abdalla Mwaruwa has appealed to port users help the facility operate more efficiently.
According to the report, domestic traffic remained dominant, bringing in 70.5 per cent of the business between January and March.

This was followed by transit cargo at 26.4 per cent and transshipment at 3.1 per cent.
Domestic cargo increased by 230,596 tonnes or 8.4 per cent, recording 2.7 million tonnes.
Transit cargo went up by 15.3 per cent, from 964,264 tonnes in 2007 to 1.1 million tonnes in 2008, its market share also rising from 25.4 per cent in 2007 to 26.4 per cent in 2008.
Transshipment cargo increased by 19.2 per cent from 107,623 tonnes in 2007 to 128,234 tonnes in 2008, with a market share of 3.1 per cent in 2008, up from 2.8 per cent in 2007.
The total container traffic volume recorded a marginal increase of 0.1 per cent, with 140,104 teu handled in the period compared with a total of 139,970 teu handled over the same period in 2007.

In order to increase capacity to meet the challenges posed by the surging import containers, KPA will spend Ksh20 billion ($317.4 million) to dredge and build the second container terminal to allow bigger vessels to call at the port.

Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere recently said Ksh16 billion ($263.9 million) will be used to build and equip the second container terminal while Ksh4 billion ($63.4 million) will go to dredging of the harbour channel and widening of the turning basin.
Construction of the second container terminal will be funded by Japan while the Kenya government undertakes the dredging. Both projects are to be completed by 2011.
Currently, the port can only handle midsized vessels due to the depth of the channel.
“Because of the success the port has had in the recent past, its cargo handling capacity is overstretched,” said Mr Mwakwere.

Mombasa port last year handled a total of 15.9 million tonnes, representing a rise of over 1.5 million tonnes or 10.5 per cent compared with the 14.4 million tonnes handled in 2006.
“This performance was against a backdrop of a challenging year in which the authority successfully weathered the threat of the vessel delay surcharge,” he said.
The port of Dar es Salaam is already reeling under the punitive surcharge by shipping lines due to delays in clearance of ships that call at the port.

The waiting period for vessels to be cleared has been on an average of 10 days.
The Kenyan port was also threatened by the delay surcharge when ships had to wait for over eight days, but this has since changed after the management convinced the shipping lines that there would be a turn around.