Mombasa clogging blamed on prosperity, poor roads and railways

IN RESPONSE to mounting criticism about chronic congestion and poor ship turnarounds at Mombasa, the Kenya Ports Authority is blaming the Rift Valley Railways, poor roads and a prosperous regional economy, reports the Nairobi East African.

Congestion has prompted shipping lines to threaten delay surcharges, a move that has so far been averted.

This comes amid complaints from shipping lines that their vessels are having to endure long waits to offload cargo, and when they finally do, there is no storage space. Port officials say vessels are often unloaded before shipping space has been identified, the report said.

The port's technical services manager, Joseph Atonga, said there were 7,000 TEU in port every, largely because importers use it as a safe storage area.

Harbour master Twalib Khamis, said the port was designed to handle 250,000 TEU but was in fact handling double that amount because of the economic prosperity in the region with hinterland countries posting GDP growth of five and six per cent.