DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – Another large ship recently docked at Dar port attracting much attention as people contemplated its size writes DAMAS MAKANGALE.
“I would like to assure our fellow Tanzanians and customers that our port has the capacity to accommodate large ships without any trouble with the arrival of this ship it has opened up doors for other larger ships to anchor at our port,” Eng. Deusdedit Kakoko, the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA), Director General said.
Registered in Grenada, MV Hammonia (left) has the capacity to carry 4,256 containers and offloaded 483 containers at Dar before and loading 656 containers and sailing off to Thailand.
Kakoko said that some few people were thinking that their port was not in such a capacity, but the fact is that their port is capacity is unique and stable and they will continues to receive ships as usual.
He said that even when President John Magufuli paid a surprise visit to the not long ago,  there were seven large vessels docked.
Eng. Kakoko said  Dar es Salaam port has a dock with the capacity to cater for such vessels at number 8, 9 and 10 piers.
The Authority Chief Pilot Capt, Abdullah Mwingamno said the ship was the biggest of ships that have been entering the port of Dar es Salaam.
Mwingamno said that at the beginning the harbour entrance was meant to be able to serve ships with a length of just 234 metres, but due to changes in technology and how those ships were manufactured managed to incorporate even greater heights.
He saidcurrently TPA has enough professionals who have undergone training from various parts of the World to be able to incorporate such a large ship.
“We sent the first cluster of our young people to South Africa to receive training on how to maneuver large ships at harbour entrances like ours and the second group of these talented Tanzanians were sent Copenhagen, Denmark,” he said.
A third batch was dispatched to Nantes in France. “So I would like to assure our customers that we have enough professionals to make this work,” he said.

By Damas Makangale, Wednesday, October 12th, 2016

Source: business week

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TradeMark Africa.