Major ports in the region have faulted the method used by the World Bank to generate the Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), which they said should include more Key Performance Indexes used to measure port productivity.
According to the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), the current method disadvantages some ports, such as Mombasa, which, although have recorded impressive performance in the recent past, continues to be ranked poorly. Mombasa Port was ranked position 328 out of the 405 global ports surveyed, which is a drop of two positions compared to 2023 raking despite undertaking major reforms and acquiring modern equipment since 2022.
The current CPPI ranking is solely based on the average port hours per port call, with port hours being the total time elapsed from the time a vessel enters a port to when she departs from the berth. However, Mombasa Port, like many other global ports, has other KPIs that mainly include ship turnaround, the time it takes to evacuate cargo from the yard which in shipping terms is known as Cargo Dwell Time, crane productivity, ship waiting time, truck turnaround and growth of cargo volumes among many.
Developed by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, the fourth edition of CPPI released last month was based on the biggest dataset ever: more than 182,000 vessel calls, 238.2 million moves, and about 381 million Twenty-foot Equivalents Units (TEUs) for the full calendar year of 2023.
Following the acquisition of modern equipment, the average ship turnaround time for container vessels decreased from an average of three days in 2022 to two days in 2023. Currently, there are no waiters at the port. Additionally, the average container dwell time reduced to 3.5 days from 3.9 days in 2022, marking a 10 percent improvement. In April this year, the average dwell time stood at 2.73 days, KPA data shows.
There has also been a significant improvement in the ship turnaround that stood at 6.9 in January this year compared to 1.23 days in May, KPA data further indicates. However, things have not been rosy for the other big regional ports. The port of Dar es Salaam dropped 55 places from 312 to 367 in the new ranking.
The Republic of Djibouti rejected as “absurd” the World Bank’s port ranking index that saw the Port of Djibouti drop from 29th place in 2022 to 379 in its 2023 report. The government added that the data the researchers had relied on was erroneous, and claimed it had recorded productivity of 120 movements per hour for docked vessels, and that it had achieved growth of more than 30 percent between 2022 and 2023. Both Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, and the tiny Berbera port in Somaliland toppled Mombasa in the World Bank’s last year report.
In August last year, the KPA acquired four new Ships to Shore Cranes (STSs) for use at the Port of Mombasa. The four new generation STSs which replaced the recently decommissioned cranes at berth 16, have the capacity for twin lift as opposed to the old generation single lift. In 2022, the Authority received yet another brand-new set of three STSs which were installed at the newly completed berth number 22 which has been operational ever since.
“The commissioning of phase 2 of the Second Container Terminal has improved yard performance greatly and created extra capacity with utilization at the yard standing at less than 50 percent,” Captain Ruto said.
KPA according to Ruto, has put in place other measures to improve productivity such as offering more training to its workforce and boosting their in a move that has seen the transit cargo volume grow by 12 percent compared to an average of 3 percent in the preceding years. Productivity and efficiency are critical considerations for port users and it’s the main drive of the increased growth in transit cargo, according to Ruto.
The Intergovernmental Steering Committee on Ease of Doing Business through the Port Reforms Working Group High-Level Consultative Forum made a raft of recommendations that have continued to cut down the cost of doing business at the Port of Mombasa and attract more volumes. The reforms forum was convened by Kenya’s Head of State Dr. William Ruto and other relevant government ministries and state departments.
In a report released in July 2023, the forum asked both the Government Partner Agencies (PGA) and the private sector to embrace a round-the-clock work culture, including the weekends, to ensure faster clearance of goods and improve cargo dwell time and ship turnaround.
The number of weighbridges along the Northern Corridor has been reduced. Ruto asked the National Assembly Integration Committee to reduce weighbridges from nine to three.
“Weighing and documenting trucks at the port using Regional Electronic Cargo Trucking Systems (RECTS) will not only reduce truck turnaround but will also reduce cases of corruption and traffic snarl-ups along the highway,’ Ruto said.
“Once a truck is checked and certified with valid documents, it should be allowed to proceed to the next border exit points at Namanga, Malaba, or Busia unless the seal is tampered with. Bureaucracy at weighbridges discourages many transporters from using the port of Mombasa, but once we adopt technology, we can attract volumes as cargo will move faster than before.”
Shipping lines operating in Mombasa port were granted a 9-day free period to return empty containers for local imports, 30 days for Uganda, and 15 days for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan cargo. The ports of Dar es Salaam, Durban, and Egypt grant more days.
“This makes the port of Mombasa non-competitive and discourages customers from using the facility since they incur demurrage charges due to the shorter free period by shipping lines taking into account the transit distance for the DRC and South Sudan,” the report said.
Uganda is the biggest transit market for Kenya, accounting for about 83.2 percent of transit cargo. South Sudan takes up 9.9 percent, while DR Congo, Tanzania, and Rwanda account for about 7.2 percent, 3.2 percent, and 2.4 percent, respectively.
This article was published by Githua Kihara, an editorial consultant for FEAFFA’s Freight Logistics Magazine. For any inquiries, please contact us via email at editorial@feaffa.com or freightlogistics@feaffa.com, or reach out to Andrew Onionga directly at onionga@feaffa.com / +254733780240.
