A cargo handling crisis has hit the port of Mombasa in Kenya with a delay in unloading nine ships due to lack of storage space.
The Kenya Ports Authority said this follows failure by importers to collect their goods. Terminal manager James Rarieya said by 3 January there were 17,587 containers against its normal capacity of 14,300.
He said out of the total number of containers being held in the port, 25 percent are for transit cargo destined to the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rarieya said failure by importers to collect their cargo was due to insecurity sparked by post-election violence.
He said on 2 January the port managed to deliver only 79 containers compared to 500 to 550 containers delivered during normal days.
He said due to lack of storage space, the port authority was utilising all available space at the motor vehicle section, at the conventional berths and any other areas within the port.
He said the port is appealing to importers and clearing agents to clear their containers from the port of Mombasa to help ease congestion.
Rarieya said although the transfer of containers from the port to Container Freight Stations was going on, failure by importers to collect their goods from the stations had complicated cargo clearance at the Mombasa port.
He said so far no shipping line has diverted their ships to other ports and the port expects that the effects of these disruptions will not last for more than four to six weeks.
Rarieya said the Kenya Ports Authority expected ships berthing delays of three to four days for January but hopes to reduce the number of days to one when normal services of clearance resume.
The authority has in the recent past been under pressure from international shipping lines operating at the Mombasa port to streamline cargo clearance following an earlier handling crisis.
Meanwhile, Cargolux said it had continued to operate services to and from Nairobi despite difficulties getting cargo into the airport.
Senior sales and marketing vice president Robert van de Weg said it had been difficult for customers to get goods from the north, such as the area around Eldoret.
Despite the recent unrest in Pakistan, Van de Weg said he was optimistic that Cargolux's first Karachi services of the new year would operate as normal from 9 January.
Dave Ingle of Cardinal Maritime, a forwarder specialising in Africa and the Middle East, said it was not yet experiencing any delays on cargo going to Nairobi through the port of Mombasa, but it had asked its agent in the country to keep a close eye on the situation.
He said when problems had arisen in the past, cargo had been diverted via other ports.
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