Counties

Heavy rains, new equipment to blame for tea, avocado stuck at port

terminal

A terminal at the Mombasa port. Photo | Jeff Angote | NMG

A State agency has linked a two-week delay in exportation of tea and avocado worth more than Sh945 million to heavy rains and offloading of newly acquired equipment.

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) managing director, Catherine Mturi-Wairi, attributed the challenges that affected export cargo, particularly tea by shipping lines, to the offloading of cargo handling equipment at berth 21 which took more days.

She said the equipment, including one Ship to Shore Gantry (STS) crane and eight Rubber Tyred Gantry cranes (RTG), took more days than expected locking out other vessels using the berth.

“Offloading of the equipment at berth number 21 took five days, which meant that no other vessel could use the berth, thus interrupting the fixed berthing window operation system,” she said in a statement Friday.

Ms Wairi also said operational challenges experienced were as a result of heavy rains that pounded the region, thus slowing down port operations and off-take.

She said that during the offloading period, the unprecedented heavy rains caused havoc affecting timely loading of cargo into vessels.

“Consequently, some exports, most of it tea, were shut out as they could not be loaded onto vessels on time,” she said.

She said the issues at the port over a week ago have been sorted out and that normalcy has returned.

“Backlog is now almost cleared...the affected shipping lines are accepting bookings for exports,” the official said.

East African Tea Trade Association managing director, Edward Mudibo, said exports worth millions of shillings were rejected and shut out by shipping lines between April 23 and May 9 affecting the normal tea auction process.

“The backlog affected our operations because our tea was either shutout or bookings rejected by shipping lines due to backlog, but we are happy this has been sorted out because it would have negatively affected our operations at the tea auction,” he said in a telephone interview Friday.

READ: High costs taking shine off tea, coffee exports to UK

ALSO READ: Sh1bn tea exports stuck in Mombasa