Serving Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern gateway for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa is one of the most important ports in East Africa.
Kenya enjoys a widespread infrastructure and the port of Mombasa is the best and most vital deepwater port in the area. The Port of Mombasa, with a rated annual capacity of 22 million tonnes, is Kenya’s key seaport and features 21 berths, two bulk oil jetties and dry bulk wharves that can handle modern deep draft ships.
The port offers specialised facilities, including cold storage, warehousing, and container terminals. Mombasa serves most international shipping lines and has an average annual freight throughput of about 8.1 million tonnes, of which 72% are imports.
The vast majority of Uganda’s exports and imports travel through this port. Inefficiency is a major issue, and transporting a container of goods between Mombasa and Kampala can take twice the time and expense as transporting that same container between London and Mombasa. Joseph Kibwana, chairman of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) board of directors, has expressed confidence and optimism in his organisation’s capacity to deliver 420 moves per vessel per day.
KPA has prepared itself for this by installing new cargo handling equipment at Mombasa which has improved the rate of loading and off-loading. In a further bid to improve performance the KPA has undertaken a series of management courses and seminars for its employees with a view to changing attitude to work and customer service.