21/05: Cargo piles up at Mombasa port after railway culverts collapse
Category: Ocean, Rail and Air News
Posted by: froglog
MOMBASA port is already feeling the impact of last week’s collapse of rail culverts at Jinja, Uganda, which the Rift Valley Railways (RVR) says will take two months to repair.
However, the port management and the RVR have separately announced plans to deal with the cargo pile-up crisis posed by the abrupt cut-off of the flow of goods from Mombasa to the four countries served by the port – Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
With many shippers and freight agents opting to change the mode of transport from rail to road to avoid delays, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has waived all storage charges that are related to the change.
The waiver, according to KPA’s chief operations manager Twalib Khamis, will be valid between May 15 and June 15.
He announced the storage waiver offer as the number of containers awaiting railage to various countries clocked 1,237 just five days after the collapse of the culverts at Iganga in Jinja.
“The number of containers awaiting railage to the landlocked countries has increased rapidly and the RVR is unable to cope with the situation at the moment due to the problem at Jinja. The distance from Jinja to Kampala by road is about 80 kilometres. “We hope that all importers with containers that need to move on top priority will take advantage of the amnesty on storage and move their boxes,” Captain Khamis said.
James Siele, RVR manager in charge of Mombasa region, said the company had been taking 60 wagons per day before the collapse of the culverts. He said the railway company had deployed equipment to Iganga to offload hundreds of containers for onward transport by road.
Being offloaded are six trains that got stranded after the destruction of the rail track, besides more dry cargo trains, which are expected to continue terminating their trips at Iganga as the repairs get under way.
As for liquids, RVR is redirecting them to Kisumu and Port Bell from where a ferry, hired from Tanzania, will transport them across Lake Victoria to Kampala and other destinations.
Following the obstacle to the rail transport, the number of container units delivered to Kampala last week dropped to 54 from 76 units in the previous week, which was far short of the 180 units targeted for delivery every week, according to an RVR report issued in Mombasa.
The crisis at Iganga has occurred at a time when RVR is under siege from shippers and clearing and forwarding agents who feel the firm is performing far below expectations.
Indeed, though total deliveries to various destinations realised last week indicated some growth from 270 to 434 units, the numbers are still below RVR’s target of 862 units per week. The destinations include Nairobi, Kisumu ICD, Malaba, Kampala and other stations.
Members of the Kenya International Freighters and Warehousing Association (KIFWA) expressed fears that the problem was going to cost them more and cause prolonged delays of transit cargo.
Continued
However, the port management and the RVR have separately announced plans to deal with the cargo pile-up crisis posed by the abrupt cut-off of the flow of goods from Mombasa to the four countries served by the port – Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
With many shippers and freight agents opting to change the mode of transport from rail to road to avoid delays, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has waived all storage charges that are related to the change.
The waiver, according to KPA’s chief operations manager Twalib Khamis, will be valid between May 15 and June 15.
He announced the storage waiver offer as the number of containers awaiting railage to various countries clocked 1,237 just five days after the collapse of the culverts at Iganga in Jinja.
“The number of containers awaiting railage to the landlocked countries has increased rapidly and the RVR is unable to cope with the situation at the moment due to the problem at Jinja. The distance from Jinja to Kampala by road is about 80 kilometres. “We hope that all importers with containers that need to move on top priority will take advantage of the amnesty on storage and move their boxes,” Captain Khamis said.
James Siele, RVR manager in charge of Mombasa region, said the company had been taking 60 wagons per day before the collapse of the culverts. He said the railway company had deployed equipment to Iganga to offload hundreds of containers for onward transport by road.
Being offloaded are six trains that got stranded after the destruction of the rail track, besides more dry cargo trains, which are expected to continue terminating their trips at Iganga as the repairs get under way.
As for liquids, RVR is redirecting them to Kisumu and Port Bell from where a ferry, hired from Tanzania, will transport them across Lake Victoria to Kampala and other destinations.
Following the obstacle to the rail transport, the number of container units delivered to Kampala last week dropped to 54 from 76 units in the previous week, which was far short of the 180 units targeted for delivery every week, according to an RVR report issued in Mombasa.
The crisis at Iganga has occurred at a time when RVR is under siege from shippers and clearing and forwarding agents who feel the firm is performing far below expectations.
Indeed, though total deliveries to various destinations realised last week indicated some growth from 270 to 434 units, the numbers are still below RVR’s target of 862 units per week. The destinations include Nairobi, Kisumu ICD, Malaba, Kampala and other stations.
Members of the Kenya International Freighters and Warehousing Association (KIFWA) expressed fears that the problem was going to cost them more and cause prolonged delays of transit cargo.
Continued
