Key Kenyan port 'is an embarrassment'

Key Kenyan port 'is an embarrassment'

Momabasa's port is bursting at the seams

Kenya's principal port of Mombasa is falling behind its competitors because outdated equipment is causing delays to shipments, the port's managing director has told the BBC.

The Port of Mombasa needs to invest about $28.8m (£18m) to modernise its container terminal, Brown Ondego, managing director of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has told the BBC.

The congestion means that goods arriving in Durban, in South Africa, may reach destinations in Kenya's neighbouring state of Uganda faster than those shipped through Mombasa, he said.

"That is an embarrassment," said Mr Ondego.

Rivals

"The only competition that we should be talking about truely is Dar es Salaam," in neighbouring Tanzania, he added.

Mombasa's container terminal is doing brisk business but is being stretched beyond its capacity.

It is handling about 300,000 containers a year, though it only has capacity for 250,000.

Dar-es-Salaam, which is also on the Indian Ocean, can cater for 230,000 containers annually.

Both ports are dwarfed by Durban, which handles more than one million containers a year.

The port of Mombasa plans to find the bulk of the $28.8m it needs for new equipment from its profits.

However, Mr Ondego said he was "hoping that we will be allowed to do some borrowing" to speed the process.

Trading up

The state-owned port is run on a commercial basis; it does not expect to receive government money for modernisation, Mr Ondego told the BBC's World Business Report.

"What we should increasingly be doing...is to get out of certain operations, let the private sector come in, and we'll remain really the landlord and regulatory authority," he said.

The port is undertaking modernisation over a three-year period.

Studies have found goods from Durban can take two weeks to reach the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

KPA is also setting up a department to tackle corruption on the docks as part of plans to improve efficiency.