Mombasa Port: Crossed Fingers for Security

Besides strangling regional trade through a breakdown of its cargo movement operations, the Port of Mombasa could also be a veritable sitting duck awaiting a terrorist attack. Four years after worldwide implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security code begun, there are valid concerns that Mombasa Port is yet to attain a level of compliance that can forestall such an attack. Indeed after audits conducted here last year by the US Anti-terrorism Assistance Office, the Kenya Maritime Authority admitted that the Port had security shortcomings that made it a soft target for terrorism.

Container shipping is increasingly vulnerable to terrorist attack and port authorities now need to pro-actively enhance security at their facilities without necessarily slowing down the flow of trade. But the perennial congestion at the Mombasa Port, for instance, can be a cause for poor verification of containers as has been exemplified by the occasional inadvertent discovery of undesirable cargo. A case in point recently was a container laden with unknown toxic substances that started leaking while on its way out of the port, prompting its couriers to dump it along the Makupa causeway. The frenzied antics by poorly clad hired hands to clean the mess helped to contain the wafting fumes that had started to cause panic in the poor neighborhood.

The port has also never really come round to curbing movement of undesirable people within its perimeters. True, it is now more difficult for ‘unauthorized’ persons to enter the port. But is it any difficult for anyone to be authorized by the very same Port? The case of the Artur brothers is still fresh in our minds and there is no doubt that these are the stern blokes that make for terrorists. Much lower down the scale of undesirables are locals in search of casual labour who every once in a while find their way in by simply displaying a borrowed port pass. So long as it’s dangling on oneself, the security men will usually just wave you through the gates without a hassle.

The truth is that the process of getting a valid pass to the port has such a sloppy vetting mechanism that can be circumvented by anyone who wants to. And diverse blokes want to, excluding the fairly harmless folk looking for a day’s job or assorted ‘food suppliers’ trying to nick the odd slack bag from offloaded cargo. Of course those among such folk who aren’t fleet-footed regularly suffer incarceration at the port’s jail facility also known as kapenguria. Unfortunately, the bravado with which the onslaught on these small fish is executed is really just a façade to cover the entrenched network of underworld operators in the port. It is no big secret that these networks enjoy political patronage and complicity of some individuals in the Port’s management. Many of the security men therefore find that their personal interests are better served in protecting these networks than implementing ‘foreign’ codes that can only bring the gravy train to a grinding halt.

At some point, the Port’s management, and the government, must realize that security of the Mombasa Port is crucial if it is to continue enjoying relevance as hub to regional trade. And that point need not be reached only when nefarious plotters, now hovering over the East African coastline, throw up the fireworks. If, and when that happens, the disaster will be unspeakable. Those who have regularly operated at the Port over the years can attest that even such basic exercises like emergency drills at this key installation are practically non existent. Are our managers irredeemably wired to always wait for violent prompting that disaster preparedness is not just a matter of lofty documentation?

Ironically, the man said to have been in charge of reforms at the Port has now taken over as the Managing Director. He could well argue that external forces and internal politics may have hitherto hindered him from implementing tangible reforms in securing the Port facility. He now has a chance to acquit himself. Because at the moment, crossed fingers seem to be the safety symbol at Mombasa Port. And that is scary.

Mombasa Port: Heads Roll, Choking Continues

Just as I was expressing dismay at the recklessness of leaving the Port of Mombasa to run on auto-pilot, the MD Abdallah Mwaruwa was being kicked out of office six months before his contract was due to expire. It is actually a feat of sorts for the man to have braved it out this long because it was largely known in the maritime industry that the office was too big for his humble abilities. It is obvious that his appointment was just a token of appeasement for the voluble coastals who never cease to clamor for ‘one of our own’ to manage the port, mali yetu. Indeed, even as his dismissal was being communicated, politicians from the coast had been to see the President ‘discussing issues affecting our people’. I can bet my last shilling that the paralysis at the port was not one of those issues.

Government needs to be firm with the coast politicians and make them accept, even though they may not understand, that the Port of Mombasa is a complex organization linked to international maritime business, regional trade and therefore cannot be run like a Miji Kenda Kaya. Port management has no room for delicate clan balancing stunts like the one executed to compose the current board of directors. The Port must simply be managed by professionals with strong leadership to lift it from its current predicament and build its capacity to handle the challenges ahead. The regular injection of dubious ‘local skills’ into the management ranks of Kenya Ports Authority has been its curse and must be brought to an end as it should now be clear that it is useless.

Mwaruwa’s counterpart at the Rift Valley Railways, one Roy Puffet, has also been jettisoned for single handedly paralyzing the Kenya/Uganda railway system which has led to choking of the port, wreaking havoc on regional trade. Legislators in Uganda are raising a furor, having warned last year that no due diligence had been carried out on RVR before handing over the railway to them. Their Kenyan counterparts are also now pressing for punitive action on the concerned players in the whole concessionaire parody that is now amounting to economic sabotage.

Having slept through their jobs, the two governments are now left with a system ground to a halt by shady characters that will enjoy contractual protection even as regional trade dangerously totters. They are busy making appointments and deadlines and vacuous vision statements that do not even begin to cover their ineptitude.

The only thing that is clear in the RVR deal is that two governments and two parliaments have been duped. It is a disgrace that incompetence of such monumental proportions should cut across borders with such ease. Just how do these fellows run government, let alone the bloody East African Community!

Related article: Mombasa Port-Gateway or Barrier

Mombasa Port: Gateway or Barrier

Cargo movement at the Port of Mombasa is currently strangled to near paralysis and is damaging commercial activity in the East and Central Africa region for which the Port is purported to be the gateway.
A bungled implementation of an electronic port management system has increased the cargo clearance period from an impressive 2 days to 14. About 10 vessels are now reported to be awaiting discharge of their cargoes. This slack is compounded by the non-performing Rift Valley Railways whose uptake of containers is said to be down to 2% from 20% when the Kenya Railways handed over.

The Kenya Ports Authority management is strangely unruffled by these regressive events and says they are only ‘teething problems’ which are being sorted out and expect them to be fully addressed in the next three months. It seems to me that some of the fellows running key operations at that port are unbelievably incompetent and are unlikely to be turned around in the next three decades, let alone months. How they hope to make Mombasa Port “the premier port of choice in the region and hub of maritime activity by 2015“is perhaps a matter of Kaya magic.

The so-called teething problems are such basic issues that would make an IT student weep. That many of the port clients have not been issued with passwords to log into the new system, that a number of the clients do have the passwords and are still unable to log in, that many of the clients have yet to be inducted into the system, that many of the port’s own staff are unable to operate the system and therefore cannot serve or guide their clients and that the system is compatible with only one internet browser. An IT manager that cannot foresee and forestall such “teething problems” leading to a complete breakdown of operations is clearly unfit for the job. And it should have been obvious to such a manager’s superior that implementing an IT solution of such a scale was never going to be easy and that a successful implementation of the project would require strong and innovative leadership.

The Kilindini Waterfront Operating System (KWATOS) that is at the centre of the current mess has been in the pipeline for more than a year now. It is amazing that a system of this magnitude with far reaching consequences can be implemented without a pilot project during which potential hitches would have been identified and remedied. It also seems to ordinary folk like me that installation should have been phased to run parallel with the previous ‘manual’ one until all end users and stakeholders are roped in; a seamless user migration that would have inspired enthusiasm and enhanced operations rather than this bizarre absence of strategy that has sparked resistance and massive loss of business.

Who will professionalize the management of Mombasa Port to help it meet national and regional goals? Certainly not Transport Minister Chirau Mwakwere whose constant refrain to pertinent issues is “that is not my responsibility”. And the port’s Board of Directors is largely composed of individuals whose input in guiding the running of such a complex organization in the maritime industry is suspect. Obviously, the port’s strategies are crafted elsewhere and the ‘council of elders’ only serve to sign on the dotted line which the MD points at.

It is a mystery how MD Abdullah Mwaruwa and his team expect to meet their vision “To be rated amongst the top 20 ports in the world in terms of reputation and performance by the year 2010”. That is two years away and by 2003, the 20th port in the world was handling 3 million TEU’s per year. The Mombasa Port expects to handle 1 million TEU’s by 2015, if KWATOS grows its teeth in time and the container terminal expansion plan succeeds.

As far as visions go, the Port of Mombasa is dreaming badly.

Yangshan Sea-Port: An Inspiration for KPA?

We’ve got to hand it to the Chinese for boldness in setting development targets and the absolute self-confidence and innovativeness with which they go about meeting them. It is no surprise that they regularly put up world beating mega-structures which continue to move forward the frontiers of technology.

After Singapore and Hong Kong, the Shangai Port is the third largest in the world. But confronted with its diminishing capacity to handle the ever increasing volumes of cargo and coupled with competition from the other ports, the Chinese authorities decided to build Yangshan port out at sea that would raise Shanghai’s cargo handling capacity to 6.5billion tonnes and 22million TEU’s per year by 2020. (TEU=Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit or container)



Construction of the first phase of the project took four years between 2000 and 2004. This consisted of the Yangshan Deep-Sea Port proper, sitting on reclaimed land and connected to mainland Shanghai by the third largest bridge in the world, the 32.5Km Donghai Bridge. The sea-port has five berths with depths of up to 16metres, enough to accommodate the largest of container ships. The first phase alone handles 3million TEU’s a year and cost USD 2.5billion.

When fully completed in 2012, the port will have four phases in operation with 30 berths handling 15million TEU’s per year. A new city, Yangshan New City, will be built right next to the sea-port of Yangshan whose total cost is expected to reach USD 12billion.



The development of Yangshan sea-port is the kind of inspirational stuff that should spur our infrastructure managers with their humble ‘plans’ for our good old Mombasa Port. Making mission/vision statements about being the ‘premier port of choice for East and Central Africa by 2020’ are obviously a more pleasurable pastime than building one. With the kind of strange paralysis currently at the port of Mombasa, 2020 will still find us planning.

Seeing that Mombasa Port is unlikely to compete with Shangai in two lifetimes, wouldn’t we do better by asking the Chinese to set up shop at the port of Mombasa to expand its capacity rather than enticing them with EPZ plots in Changamwe?

Back to Blogs.

Even bloggers take a holiday. About three months since I was last in these parts on account of creaking body parts. I’m now well nursed and good to get back to the exciting blogosphere. I’ve had days to catch up with goings on the Kenyan scene which seems to have lately become more depressing than exciting. Still, we blog on.

Kenyan Insurance for California fires?

The marshalling of resources to fight the California bush fires and the massive evacuation operations was truly an educative demonstration in disaster management. It may not surprise anyone that no one from our myriad local ‘disaster management’ outfits took a flight to the US for close-up practical lessons. They most likely gathered crucial skills from the comfort of their sitting rooms or local pubs or wherever the CNN footage was beamed across the world. Do we have foresighted technocrats in the fire fighting departments, police, military, St. John’s, Red Cross et al, with the capacity to set up exchange/training programs with the battle hardened organizations out there? Or shall we remain content with sending appeals out there for assistance whenever disaster strikes our lands?

One of the most striking announcements during the California disaster was that insurance companies were already setting up desks at the evacuation centers to begin processing the victims’ compensation for home rebuilding! And I thought, haai, we are truly living in the third world. Insurance companies re-building razed houses? Thousands of them?

It reminded me of a household cover I took a while back with a local insurance company. When my cell-phone (also covered) was snatched from me by robbers right at my door in an enclosed compound the company refused to compensate. That is when the notorious fine lines were fished out from some policy document I’d never been shown before. That they only compensated phones damaged accidentally, like if it fell on the floor to pieces…in the house. Proving that would of course require an investigation report from their appointed detective - skilled enough to differentiate between an accidentally dropped phone from one carelessly tossed about. Well, they refused to pay and I bought a cheaper gadget the following week and life went on.

What will happen when my house burns down? Before even their clever detectives are called in, some insurance agent in a tie (even in the Mombasa heat) will have reminded you of the fine-print exclusion clauses. Arson, riot act, natural calamity, God’s act, electrical fault….. Do this people compensate anyone for anything? Except when they rush to the media to display cheques in payment for a matatu smash up.

They may well argue that tenants cannot be compensated for razed rental houses, but do they compensate the owner? If not, why not? If so, why not adjust premium payments to include the tenant’s exposure to the potential calamity? Surely this cannot be beyond actuarial mathematics.

And then this years salary survey places Insurance company executives among the top five most highly paid professionals in the country!