Treasury woos shipping lines to new Lamu port with lower fees

The new Lamu Port will offer incentives to shipping lines docking at the facility ahead of its commissioning in the coming weeks.

The port will receive its first ship on May 20 at berth one with the Treasury saying it will be gazetting the incentives on the tariffs in coming days.

Treasury CS Ukur Yatani and other key stakeholders visited the facility on Thursday last week to inspect the progress ahead of the planned launch.

“Incentives relating to fees and charges for using and clearing goods at the port as requested by stakeholders will be gazetted for at least a period of one year, in the next few days, to promote usage of the port by the business and logistics sectors,” said Treasury in a statement.

Lamu will handle bigger ships compared to the ones that call at the shallower Kilindini harbour at the port of Mombasa.

The new facility will be instrumental in handling transshipment vessels with the small ships expected to ferry the containers to the last destination.

Some of the cargo landing at the port of Lamu will be destined to a number of Indian Ocean islands such as Reunion and Seychelles.

The port is a key part of the wider Lamu Port South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor, which is being implemented at a total cost of Sh2.5 trillion ($24 billion).

Commissioning of the port has been delayed thrice over the past two years on funding shortages and operationalisation of all three berths have been pushed to October this year as authorities seek at least Sh9.5 billion for the purchase of basic equipment to run the berths.

Subsequent phases will be undertaken by the private sector under a PPP framework and eventually result into 23 berths along its 10 kilometres shore length, with the capacity to handle cargo traffic of 23.9 million tonnes by 2030.