KENYA: Port of Mombasa now takes up the position of being world’s second best port in Sub-Saharan Africa after it has stricken the score of 1 million container ships completion at its deck.
The port becomes the second in Southern Sahara region to handle more than one million containers in a year, second from the port of Durban in South Africa. This is more than 12 per cent higher than the 894,000 TEUs handled in 2013 and 903,463 TEUs handled in 2012.
By 11.00 am yesterday, Kenya Ports Authority had handled 999,997 containers. Transport cabinet secretary Michael Kamau led the port community and stakeholders in witnessing the offloading of the millionth container at berth 19, which was offloaded at 11.09 am off container vessel- Lilly Schulte.
The port also posted a new record of 24 million tonnes of total cargo throughput last year, up from 22.3 million tonnes registered in 2013.
The new mark is expected to push the port of Mombasa a notch higher in global ranking where it is currently among top 120 world top container ports in the world, out of over 5000 ports worldwide.
Speaking during the event, Kamau lauded the port community for the achievement.
He partly attributed this to the government’s input and support in improving port capacity and efficiency.
These include President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directives in June last year which saw the reduction of non-tarrif barriers along the Northern corridor that serves the East and central Africa region.
Loaded trucks are currently weighed only twice between the port and border points. Road block were also reduced under the president directives which reduced container dwell time and transit time to the land locked countries.
KPA managing director Gichiri Ndua said the port now targets 1.4 million TEU’s from this year onward.
He commended the port community for working during the festive season which has seen the port achieve the new record.
“We remain focused in achieving further improvements and we are equally optimistic that we shall maintain our position of being among top five container ports in Africa,” said Ndua.
