Collapsed railway, hyacinth conspire to sink Kisumu port

Kisumu port only moved a paltry 13,500 metric tonnes of cargo last year, even as the government contemplates building a new Sh14 billion similar facility in the lake side city, as part of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) infrastructure drive.

For decades, the once busy Kisumu port was a beehive of activity where ships docked to offload and load goods. But not anymore. The port that once generated jobs and handled cargo worth billions of shillings has been underutilised for years despite its immense potential to boost the county's economy.

The port, established in 1901, saw its export cargo to Uganda and Tanzania reach 12,350 tonnes last year, compared to a paltry 1,150 tonnes in imports from these countries.

According to the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) in its port performance figures for 2018, the port only handled 12,000 tonnes of fertiliser exported to Uganda, 240 tonnes of Magadi soda, 108 tonnes of heavy machinery headed to Tanzania and two tonnes of assorted cargo and bottle filing machine.

In terms of imports, the lakes side port handled only 1,100 tonnes of sugar from Uganda, and 50 tonnes of heavy trucks from Dar, pointing to its under use as a key gateway and connectivity between the three countries.

What is to blame for this sorry state of the port? Fingers have invariably pointed at the invasion of the hyacinth weed in the lake, poor transport system and the deplorable state of its landing sites.Another key setback is the collapse of the railways systems. All these have conspired to sink all the business at the port.

A look at the performance of the Nairobi Inland Depot Centre (ICD) since it began the SGR cargo haulage from Mombasa, just serves to illustrate the low level to which Kisumu port has deteriorated.

The ICD handled more than 257,972 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) in 2018, up from a mere 30,459 TEUs it did in 2017. Of these, 177,652 TEUs were imports, coming through from the Mombasa port, while 11,701 TEUs were exports. This shows the positive effects of the SGR line, the KPA data indicates.

At its peak, Kisumu port was one of the crucial passenger and cargo hubs that interlinked the country to Uganda, Tanzania through their Port Bell, Jinja, Bukoba and Mwanza ports.

The KPA took over the ports management from Kenya Railways in 2017 with plans to revamp the Kisumu pier site. However, nothing much has been done to reverse the fortunes of the port which currently receives at best one vessel a week, down from four two years ago.

The future of the port now even looks gloomy. Under the SGR plan, a new port, located 16 kilometres in Usare, Kisian is on the cards. The proposed facility targets to transport cement, coal and petroleum products to the regional countries.

Constuction of petroleum jetty is also ongoing. “We are finalising the construction of the Kisumu petroleum jetty on Lake Victoria and for the first time since colonial days, we are utilising Lake Victoria for transportation thereby reducing the cost of moving fuel (petroleum) to Uganda and increasing potential for trade between the two countries,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said a fortnight ago when he played host to his Ugandan counterpart, Mr Yoweri Museveni.

Two years ago, the government inked a financial agreement with China Exim Bank for a Sh14 billion loan, which will be channelled to finance construction of the new port.

“CRBC will construct a port in Kisumu as we target to increase business with our neighbouring countries. We have chosen this new location as it gives us the flexibility for expansion and also allows us to build a logistics and an industrial park,” said Transport and infrastructure cabinet secretary James Macharia.

“The contractor is now expected to put up modern berths, state-of-the-art cargo handling equipment and dredging the access channel to enable the port to handle bigger vessels.”

According to design documents from the Kenya Railways seen by Shipping &Logistics, Kenya is now angling to build a new modern container terminal in Kisumu, a project it says will take eight months, and once complete will be leased out to sub operators under an agreement with the KPA.

The design documents show that the new port will have two multi-purpose berths of 3,000 tonnes and one work boar berth that will be used to accommodate the safe flying of ships alongside a pier, at anchor.

“There will also be the construction of a roll on/roll off (Ro-Ro) terminal that will facilitate loading and offloading from ships designed to carry wheeled cargo like cars,” reads part of the design documents.

Just like the Mombasa port, the new one at Kisumu will be linked by rail, with other auxiliary connections including access roads, electricity connections and satellite buildings. The designs show that the new port will require a total land acreage of 20km squared to accommodate all its amenities. The port operations would be conducted by terminal operating firms that enter into sub concession agreements with KPA.