OUR GEM IS BACK HOME.

THE PORT OF MOMBASA is located on the site of one of Africa’s oldest surviving harbours and can be traced back long before the arrival of the Portuguese explorers to a time when Arabian dhows called at the Old Port on the north side of Mombasa Island.

The port is equipped to handle a wide range of cargoes including dry bulk such as grain, fertilisers, cement and soda ash and liquid bulk such as crude oil and oil products. This is in addition to bagged products (coffee, tea, sugar, etc), general break-bulk (iron and steel, timber), motor vehicles, machinery – and containerised cargo. The port has a total of 19 deepwater berths. Six of these are for container ships, others include tanker berths, bulk and breakbulk cargo berths. Lighterage and Dhow berthing are also catered for.

The Port of Mombasa is served by road and rail to inland destinations including the capital Nairobi, and the neighbouring states of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the eastern DRC, and South Sudan. A new standard gauge railway between Mombasa and Nairobi was nearing completion and in mid-2017 had reached Nairobi, with extensions to Naivasha and Kisumu, and finally to the Uganda border at Malab being planned. Cargo or goods trains on the standard gauge are due to commence operating from January 2018.

A visit to Mombasa last month made plain some facts and revealed the tensions underlying increasing Chinese influence in the region. The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), connecting Mombasa and inland Nairobi, is a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and was intended to be a flagship infrastructure project for Eastern Africa,[3] but it has put Kenya into a debt trap due to high interest rates and inflated costs. The China EXIM Bank granted the $3.2 billion loan for building the railway line at an interest rate of 5.6%, to be repaid in 15 years with a grace period of five years. This is much higher than the Libor rate of 2%.

The SGR was a government-to-government deal, signed on 11 May 2014. The Chinese were adamant about Mombasa port being a part of the railway line because they wanted the KPA to be the guarantor if the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) defaulted in its obligations. Had the Kenyan government demurred, the project would never have taken off. The Chinese then put in an additional clause, seeking that the KPA transport a minimum of 6 million tonnes of cargo annually through the railway line. Failure to do so will make the KPA liable to pay China EXIM Bank.

It is important to note that the rail line between Mombasa and Nairobi has been operational since 2017, and though being put to good use, is currently making losses.

The 472-km Mombasa-Nairobi SGR cost the Kenyan government $3.6 billion – a very high cost, compared to the Japanese-South African deal to build the much longer 906-km SGR from Moatize coalfield in Mozambique to a deep-water port at Nacala-a-Velha in the Indian Ocean for $2.4 billion.

China has significant investments in Kenya and is the biggest bilateral lender to the country at $52 billion in 2018.[6] The development of three berths at the deep-sea Lamu port, in Manda Bay, Lamu County, for example, is aimed at improving trade and logistics in the Ethiopian, Kenyan and South Sudan markets. The Chinese are in talks with the Kenyan government to develop the remaining 20 berths as well.

Kenya is becoming a zone of contestation, with the Japanese recently investing $356 million in loans for building the Mombasa Special Economic Zone Development Project 1 in the Dongo Kundo area.[7] Japan also provided a loan of $444 million to the Kenyan government for the Mombasa Gate Bridge Construction Project (I).

For more than 5 yrs now, the port used to operate from Naivasha and Mombasa where all cargos were transited from Mombasa to Nairobi and variois destinations via the standard gauge railway.

The clearing and forwarding agents in Mombasa Town cried and made several trips to the court to atleast have their pleas heard. Their businesses went down to an extend other shut down their premises waiting for a better agreement between them and the government.

Recently, it seems like their cry was finally heard as H. E Ruto said that all port services will be restored in Mombasa. This was a good news to the business men of Mombasa and those around coast. This will boost and increase their profits and sales as the reversal of port activities to mombasa will expand networks and businesses.

The members are still onthe wait on when the services will fully return to Mombasa, Kilindini habour as claims out here say that the port is not yet back though the cargo owners are at liberty to propose if their cargo will be cleared in Mombasa or it'll proceed to the dry ports that is Nairobi and Mombasa.