Kenya has introduced the use of double stack trains to speed
up the evacuation of cargo at the Port of Mombasa and deal with mounting
congestion.
Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) said the double stack railing is
aimed at improving cargo offtake by the standard gauge railway (SGR) freight
service, with the cargo destined to the Nairobi container depot (ICD) in the
capital.
“The service will transport 152 containers from the current
108 containers, enhancing faster cargo movement and increase efficiency at the
port,” said KPA in a statement.
The decision to introduce double stack trains comes after
the port, which is the main gateway to East Africa, witnessed a significant
increase in cargo due to increase in trade, manufacturing and retail business
following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns.
In recent months, Port of Mombasa has seen a significant
increase in the number of vessel calls. Data by the Kenya National Bureau of
Statistics show the port recorded an increase in throughput, handling 8.6
million tonnes of cargo in the third quarter of 2020 compared to 8.3 million
tonnes in 2019.
While shipping and logistics stakeholders have hailed the
move to introduce the double stack trains to boost efficiency at the port, the
problem of congestion has been transferred to the Nairobi ICD, where a slow
process of cargo release by the tax authority has made it impossible for
importers to collect cargo fast enough.
This is because KPA is loading all cargo designed for inland
and export onto the SGR, something that importers say has seen the ICD become a
dumping ground for cargo which must be subjected to the process of scanning and
verification by the Kenya Revenue Authority.
“We had started to have delays in offloading of cargo from
ships but this has now been addressed with the introduction of double stack
trains. However, the increase in the number of containers at the ICD is slowing
down the release process,” said Wycliffe Wanda, Kenya International Freight and
Warehousing Association CEO.
The use of double stack trains has seen the number of
containers arriving at the ICD hit more than 1,200 daily. The Nairobi ICD,
which was opened in 2018 at a cost of $200 million, has a capacity to handle
450,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
“The only way to make Mombasa port operate efficiently and
seamlessly is to increase efficiency at corresponding facilities, particularly
the Nairobi ICD,” said Wanda.
The Mombasa port has witnessed a steady increase in overall
throughput, posting an 11 percent increase in 2019 to 34.4 million tonnes from
30.9 million the previous year.
With a capacity of 2.65 million TEUs, the Mombasa port has
been named alongside Lagos in Nigeria, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Cape Town
in South Africa among facilities in Africa that are nearing the maximum
operating capacity of their existing infrastructure.