The story is told of a master whose vessel run included a call at a port in Southeast Asia in the early 1990s, then notorious for equipment breakdowns, congestion, inefficiency and long port stays.
On one voyage as he approached the port, he received a work plan that showed a two-day port stay as opposed to the four to five days he was accustomed to. He put it down to one of the many errors he had to endure at this port.
On arrival, though these two days were reconfirmed and the vessel proceeded to work at top speed. He sought an explanation. It was as brief as his port stay – the port had just been privatised.
There had been an almost immediate effect. In Mombasa, there is some hope of this kind of transformation given recent events at the port, even though privatisation still seems to be far away, if at all it is coming.
For the first time in decades, the port is undergoing a major infrastructural upgrade. New equipment has been brought in. A comprehensive master plan for the growth and development of the port has been made.
The port, both at the operational as well as administrative levels, is being run by people with extensive experience in the commercial side of shipping.
The port is now moving towards being well equipped, especially in handling waterfront operations.
The challenge now is with the operations involving cargo offtake from the port, stacking and storage, security and general cargo congestion.
The Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Railways and Kenya Revenue Authority must work together to create smart solutions to tackle matters such as offtake of inland-destined cargo, transit cargo handling and clearance, container stacking space, empty containers and how to handle them as well as truck movements within the port. All these are addressed in the port’s master plan.
Emmanuel Mkok is based at PIL (Kenya) Ltd in Mombasa.
Leave a Reply