Does Port Mombasa have adequate capacity?

DESPITE being the largest gateway to East and Central Africa, Kenya’s coastal port of Mombasa is in danger of losing its historical dominance in the region. The price is being paid for years of neglect to this port and road infrastructure. Low capacity use of the port is also attributed to civil strife in the Great Lakes Region states of Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, and Sudan, all served by the harbour. However, more significantly, the drop in volume of cargo landed and uploaded has been associated with poor port management by the Kenya Ports Authority. KPA was established by an Act of parliament on 20 January 1978 as a successor to the East African Harbours Corporation. Apart from Mombasa, KPA also has under its jurisdiction the small ports of Lamu, Kiunga, Kilifi, Malindi, Funzi, Mtwapa, Shimoni and Vanga.
‘Highly politicized selection of managers, corruption, and disregard of professional standards plus frequent changes of management has created weaknesses in KPA’s performance,’ said Otieno Kajwang, Kenyan opposition Member of Parliament (as reported on www.businessinafrica.net).
During a KPA Stakeholders’ Forum on Tuesday 23 May 2006 at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel, Mr. Issa Sekitto, Spokesperson of the Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) whose members visited the port at the end of April 2006 gave two reasons for the negative trends: First, repressing of the East African Union increased the tariffs and import duties.
‘KPA should advise the Kenyan Government to give an amnesty that will let us know that we are real East Africans.’ Mr. Sekitto said.
Nevertheless, progress is being made to review tariffs which have been intact since 1985. Secondly, barring of loose (conventional) cargo; this way people are forced to become importers of containers and soon go out of business.
The full house forum had been organized to present to stakeholders the latest developments at the port and invite their views to its improvement. ‘Views have contributed significantly in improving efficiency. KPA has improved through focused investment and building customer relations,’ remarked Mr. Abdallah H. Mwaruwa, MD-KPA.
Some traders present complained about their lost cargo but KPA affirmed that since January 2006, no container was lost. In fact, a port facility assessment was carried out in 2005 ending in continued focus on security improvement. A gate pass module will streamline security.
The design capacity of the container terminal is congested but new cargo holding equipment is in plan. Strides are being made to computerize key port services, implement electronic data interchange from shipping lines and reduce human interaction which causes port problems. Mr. Mwaruwa was optimistic that by 2007, Mombasa will become an E-Port.
‘76 percent of the transit cargo that goes through the Port of Mombasa ends in Uganda,’ spoke Gen. (Rtd) J.R.E. Kibwana EGH, CBS, and Chairman-KPA. That shows just how much Ugandans should be concerned about this seaport. ‘We believe the Port of Mombasa is your port. KPA is interacting with other ministries to ensure movement of cargo in the Northern Corridor( Roads Network), speedy processing of documents and expansion of the container ward. Doing business is expensive but we are trying to reduce this cost so that savings can be transferred to our customers.’
‘If you are serious about competition, you must keep your cost down. That is the edge. Tanzania’s cost effective route is Mombasa,’ said Mr. Gichiri Ndua, the Corporate Services Manager-KPA. His view was supported by the transit traffic report for 2004 and 2005 in which Tanzania, a coastal nation had the second highest volume going through the port and its annual change in volume was a 22.4 percent rise compared to 21.3 percent for Uganda in first place. Mombasa also serves Rwanda, Burundi, Eastern DRC and Southern Sudan.
But does the port have adequate capacity? ‘It is very important not to lose focus. Interest has been evaluated for a second commercial port but the privatization bill ties our hands,’ said Mr. Ndua during his graphic presentation. ‘We must be aware of using the available capacity in the existing port. The Port of Mombasa might be constrained.’
Mr. Ndua added that during the traffic projections until 2027, Sudan had been left out. Today DRC is awakening and Burundi is coming up. ‘We need to focus.’
Prompted by the performance of China and India, the KPA management in 2000 introduced planned maintenance, condition monitoring on some of their equipment, and predictive maintenance where infrared systems can detect when distribution is likely to suffer.
Between 2004 and 2005, the authority received 7 new top loaders, 3 Sixteen Ton Forklifts and 1 mobile crane. From M/S Damen shipyards of Holland came 3 tugboats, 2 pilot boats and 2 patrol boats. M/S ZPMC China delivered 20 terminal tractors (tug masters), 4 Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes, 12 Rubber Tyred Gantry (RTG) cranes, and 2 Rail Mounted Gantry (RMG) cranes. They pick containers from the back of rails, measure their weight and save time. Overweight containers are not loaded.
Concerning the Port Master Plan, Mr. Ndua said that KPA shall review and find out the best location for a container terminal. Updating the stakeholders, he revealed that most railway lines had been uprooted and more shades destroyed making the container station a proper stacking area though capacity has not been addressed.
‘People had different interests in the Free Trade Zone but we do not facilitate trade for one person. We will soon be going to press to tell them: this is how we want it.’
In implementing Information Technology (IT), KPA introduced SAP (automating office business processes), EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), CBS ( a Community Based System which links port users electronically to allow secure exchange of authorized data between partners) and the Kilindini waterfront Project. By 2007, this project may be thrown out though it automates the core port operations of the authority including terminal, shipping and distribution operations in line with KPA’s strategic objective.
Close to the end of the forum, Mr. Omar Kassim, the National Chairman Uganda Clearing and Forwarding Agents Association said, ‘This forum is more of a unilateral than multilateral approach. Broader regional frameworks forge stronger ties, trading blocks emerge for the benefit of regional governments. The majority of your customers come from the private business sector. My concern is for you to forge a consultative partnership through which benefits can be channeled to the people at the grassroots level. One dogma I learnt at another workshop is that if you do not embrace change, you will be left out. I cannot speak big words to someone who has not been educated. Please, appraise your business partners constantly if working harmony is to be achieved.’