Cargo Piles Up At Port of Mombasa

A cargo handling crisis has hit the port of Mombasa with a delay in unloading nine ships due to lack of storage space.

This follows failure by importers to collect their goods, the Kenya Ports Authority said on Thursday. According to the port's terminal manager, Mr James Rarieya, by Thursday there are 17,587 containers against its normal capacity of 14,300.

"Out of the total number of containers being held in the port, 25 per cent are for transit cargo destined to the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said.

Mr Rarieya said failure by importers to collect their cargo was due to insecurity sparked by post-election violence.

"On Wednesday, we managed to deliver only 79 containers compared to 500 to 550 containers we deliver during normal days," he said.

He said due to lack of storage space, the port authority was utilising all available space at the motor vehicle section, at the conventional berths and any other areas within the port. "We are appealing to importers and clearing agents to clear their containers from the port of Mombasa to help ease congestion," he said.

Cargo clearance

Mr Rarieya said although the transfer of containers from the port to Container Freight Stations was going on, failure by importers to collect their goods from the stations had complicated cargo clearance at the Mombasa port.

"So far no shipping line has diverted their ships to other ports and we expect that the effects of these disruptions will not last for more than four to six weeks," he said.

Mr Rarieya said the Kenya Ports Authority expected ships berthing delays of three to four days for January but hopes to reduce the number of days to one when normal services of clearance resume.

The authority has in the recent past been under pressure from international shipping lines operating at the Mombasa port to streamline cargo clearance following an earlier handling crisis.

Source:RamblerNews