KPA officials under siege as port congestion escalates

A truck carrying a container leaves the port of Mombasa through Kipevu Gate yesterday. [Gideon Maundu, Standard]

Activities at Mombasa port remained paralysed yesterday due to alleged massive system failure.

However, some sources have said operational inefficiencies, high level corruption and cargo losses at the port and at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Embakasi, Nairobi, have been engineered to undermine the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) freight services.

More Cabinet secretaries yesterday arrived at the port to try to unlock the congestion that has hit the facility for a week.

East African Community Affairs and Northern Corridor Development CS Peter Munya arrived at the port together with Transport Principal Secretary Paul Maringa and were in a meeting with Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officials for hours.

“CS Peter Munya arrived this morning and is holding meetings with stakeholders,” said Hajji Masemo, a KPA public relations officer.

Mr Masemo said KPA would issue a comprehensive statement today detailing the measures adopted to decongest the port of Mombasa and the ICD in Embakasi.

There were reports that the congestion had affected transit trade between Kenya and its neighbours.

Supervise clearance

Mr Munya was joined by his Industrialisation counterpart, Adan Mohamed, who has been at the port since Friday to supervise the clearance of 11,000 containers to private freight stations.

On Friday and Saturday, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i, KRA boss John Njiraini, Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina and representatives of Kenya's neighbours visited the port to assess the logistical chaos.

The Standard has established that 32,000 import and export containers have been lying at the port and the ICD in Nairobi since Thursday last week, which has rattled the Jubilee administration and other East African countries that use the port.

KPA Managing Director Catherine Mturi Wairi was said to be facing a daunting task dealing with vested interests in the logistics department since her appointment three years ago.

Besides managing the port, the MD overseas the operations of other state agencies including KRA, Kenya Railways and Kenya Bureau of Standards. This has been the case since a 2013 presidential decree.

She has been the centre of focus since Friday as Cabinet secretaries took over the management of the port.

Last week, ships left without 400 containers of tea intended for Europe, Egypt, USA and Pakistan due to delays in clearance.

There were claims from some quarters that KPA was victim of sabotage by powerful forces within and outside the port.

Containers nominated

William Ruto, the KPA general manager in charge of operations said: "The list of containers nominated to the various CFSs shall be posted on the KPA website for importers to know which CFSs their containers have been nominated to."

There was a crisis last week when the KRA Manifest Management System collapsed, halting the clearance of cargo.

[Benard Sanga, Patrick Beja, Philip Mwakio and Willis Oketch]