The delays have been largely attributed to staff changes at KRA following interdiction of 75 officials who were linked to illegal cargo clearance and irregular issuance of tax compliance certificates.
There are also claims the situation has been compounded by KRA employees who are said to be on a go-slow to protest what they perceive as harassment of their colleagues.
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has been blamed for delays in clearing cargo at the Port of Mombasa and at Inland Container Depot (ICD) Embakasi, Nairobi.
The delays have been largely attributed to staff changes at KRA following interdiction of 75 officials who were linked to illegal cargo clearance and irregular issuance of tax compliance certificates.
According to transport players, the internal staff changes are negatively affecting movement of cargo at the port and ICD.
There are also claims the situation has been compounded by KRA employees who are said to be on a go-slow to protest what they perceive as harassment of their colleagues.
The Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association (Kifwa) said the delay in cargo clearance is increasing storage charges, hurting their businesses, and called on KRA to move with speed to restore normalcy.
Kifwa national chairman Roy Mwanthi said they had held several meetings with KRA officials over the issue but they were yet to see any positive change.
"We had our first meeting on Tuesday last week and explained our position since we are incurring huge losses as a result of delay in delivering cargo. We are asking KRA management to move with speed and change the situation," said Mr Mwanthi.
According to the chairman, they also met commissioner for customs and border control Kevin Safari last Friday over the matter, and he promised to ensure the processing of cargo was hastened.
"We have been having issues and we have remained quiet for some time. The loss we are incurring daily is huge,” said Mr Mwanthi.
“We are, however, optimistic Mr Safari will fulfil his promise and see normalcy resume in cargo movement."
More than 1,000 containers arrive at the Mombasa port daily.
The slow clearing process, the players said, had led to the reduction in the number of containers ferried through the Standard Gauge Railway from the Port of Mombasa to ICD in Nairobi.
Long distance transporters also voiced their concerns saying they have been wasting a lot of time due to the delays.
"We have to spend more time to get a container out of the Container Freight Terminals and this affects our turnaround time," said Karissa Juma, one of the truck drivers.
However, Mr Safari has denied any serious delays in cargo clearance saying he had only received complaints on the matter from transporters handling high risk consignment.
“There are currently no delays being reported at either the Mombasa Port nor at the ICDN. Cargo movement processing is going on smoothly and where delays are experienced, we have an escalation mechanism to fast-track the compliant consignments,” said Mr Safari.
The commissioner said he met with stakeholders in Mombasa last week, in a bid to address “few issues which were arising” regarding high risk consignment.
“We are currently scanning cargo in advance as they enter the port area. We use a centralised cargo scanning control centre that enables 24-hour monitoring of cargo. Scanning operations include, among other,s image analysis,” said Mr Safari.
“KRA has streamlined verification processes to incorporate the interests of the partner government agencies among them, the Kenya Ports Authority and Kenya Railways Corporation, to eliminate multiple verifications to speed up efficiency in cargo movement between Mombasa and ICDN.”
Two weeks ago, long distance transporters complained about increasing cost of doing business, attributing ths to delay by KRA to provide cargo tracking seals.The transporters said they were incurring demurrage charges as most of the containers had to stay longer in the yard while drivers are demanding pay for job not done.
KRA had made it mandatory for all transporters to acquire special regional seal from them apart from the Electronic Cargo Tracking System ECTS tags provided by authorised private firms.
About fortnight ago, Directorate of Criminal Investigations detective nabbed 41 suspects, who are part of the 75 officials interdicted by the KRA for being part of a tax evasion racket. The 75 employees are said to have been aiding and abetting evasion of taxes by facilitating irregular clearance of cargo and executing fraudulent amendments of tax returns.
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