Importers asked to help decongest port as it faces cargo handling crisis

The Kenya Ports Authority’s managing director, Mr Abdallah Mwaruwa, appealed to importers and clearing agents during the weekend to help decongest the Mombasa port by collecting their overstayed goods.

The director said the port was experiencing a cargo handling crisis due to lack of storage space, following delays by importers to collect their goods as a result of the long Christmas and New Year holidays and the post-election violence.

Clearing agents

“We are appealing to importers and clearing agents to clear their containers from the port of Mombasa to help ease congestion, as we are talking to police to provide escort for trucks ferrying goods from the port,” he said.

Mr Mwaruwa said that by last Friday morning, six ships were on the waiting to discharge cargo, due to poor off-take of goods from the port. The number of containers had increased to 18,472 against the terminals normal capacity of 14,300 containers, he said. He added that one ship had left the port without discharging containers due to the delays.

“We are currently holding more than 4,000 boxes above the container terminals holding capacity,” he said.

Transit cargo

He added that 25 per cent of goods being held at the port are transit cargo destined for the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“The current transport stalemate from the port of Mombasa is severely affecting not only the Kenyan economy, but also those of our transit customers, notably Uganda, Rwanda, Eastern DRC and southern Sudan,” he said.

Mr Mwaruwa added that unless the release of goods from the port improved the situation would worsen as a total of 8,636 containers was expected in the next 10 days.

On Friday we managed to deliver only 277 containers compared to 500 to 550 containers we normally deliver, he said.

Been complicated

The director said the situation in the port had been complicated by failure of the Rift Valley Railways to move goods from the port in the past few days.

He said that due to lack of storage space for containers in the port, KPA had been forced to use all available space to store goods and transfer others to Container Freight Stations (CFS).

The authority has in the recent past been under pressure from international shipping lines operating at the port to streamline cargo clearance operations following a cargo handling crisis that resulted in ships delays at the port.

Several shipping lines had threatened to introduce a US $ 200 or more than Sh13,000 per container vessel delay surcharge at the port due to delays in ships turn-around, but suspended the move following negotiations between KPA and the shipping lines.

It is feared that unless the cargo clearance services at the Mombasa port improve, international shipping lines would go ahead with plans to introduce the surcharge.

Source:RamblerNews