Old timers and businessmen alike, who have been away from Tanga for the last three decades, will surely notice a big change in as far as activities with regard to cargo handling is taking place at Tanga Port.

Fact is , the maritime facility , the second largest and oldest in the country, has somewhat lost its glory in terms of cargo handling – both exports and imports.

Compared to the past – over a decade ago, when the port used to handle massive traffic – imports and exports from and to the Lake Zone and Northern Zone, only a fraction passes through the port.

Port authorities say most traffic is ferried by road in small quantities. Apparently, the main culprit is closure of the Tanga line railway – a facility which used to haul hundreds of tones – both general merchandise and containerised traffic.

The traffic used to be ferried from Lake Zone – Mwanza and Kemondo Bay in Bukoba through the Central Corridor – clearing sensitive traffic such as copper concentrates from Shinyanga. Along the Tanga – Arusha stretch, trains ferried commodities such as sisal, coffee, tea and soya beans.

Copper concentrates, particularly used to be loaded on containers and hauled in block form of 20 or so wagons down to the Tanga Port from Isaka.

Presently, traffic from Northern Zone travels by road through the Tanzania – Kenya border at Holili – onwards to Mombasa Port. That means imports using the Kenyan facility uses the same mode of transport.

At a Regional Consultative Council (RCC) meeting recently, Moshi Mtambalike, Tanga Port Senior Planning Officer told the forum that the closure of the Tanga Railway was the main challenge facing overall performance of the port.

“Poor performance of the railway has tremendously affected operations at the Port in that massive traffic previously handled at the port from Lake Zone and Northern Zone no longer pass through Tanga Port”, explained Moshi.

She revealed that from 2009, no traffic had been transported by rail to the Port, saying cargo handled at the Port had mainly arrived by road transport which does not normally handle bulk cargo.

Apparently, the railway was officially closed in 2007 after the former Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) – a government owned parastatal was concessioned to M/S Railway India Technical Services (RITES) – a company under the ownership of Indian government.

Word had it that the company which had entered in a contractual agreement with the government to run the country’s railway for 25 years, failed in its obligation because of various reasons, among them lack of sufficient capital.

Shallow berth at the Port, said Moshi, was another contributory challenge facing the port. ‘Tanga is a lightrage port, in that large sea going vessels can not load and offload alongside berth”, she explained.

‘The obtaining situation is such that the port uses lighters and pontoons to ferry cargo to and from anchorage station – almost a kilometre away – hence double handling.’

Another equally challenging situation is constraint prevailing with regard to expansion of stacking yard at the port. She said the fact that the port is adjacent to the city environs makes it impossible to extend the yard on either side.

However, going by the port’s projections, revealed to The Guardian almost three years ago, there was in place a strategic plan for port expansion aimed at increasing capacity of containerized traffic at the container yard.

Structures which appear alongside the port, include the ancient King George Memorial Library, Tanga City Council (TCC), St. Anthony Catholic Church and several oil depots.

According to statistics availed at the meeting, there was an impressive record of flow of ship in that a total of 83 deep sea going vessels were handled during the 2012/13 period while in 2013/14 there were 68. A total of 427,571 tonnes of general cargo were offloaded in 2012/13, against 448,031 (2013/14).

The report revealed that 5,039 tonnes of containerised traffic was offloaded in 2012/13 against 6,093 tonnes (2013/14).

Whereas the port’s yard’s capacity has been elevated to Twenty Equivalent Units (TEUs) [ 4,300] , the port will handle 600,000 tonnes of bauxite cargo annually from Lushoto, 50,000 tonnes of clinker for every 3 months to cater for the Tanga Cement Factory, 30,000 tonnes of petroleum coke for the Nielkanth Lime Factory and coal 30,000 tonnes for Rhino Cement Company.

The representative said now that the government was embarking on massive rehabilitation of the Central Line, it was prudent that construction of the Arusha – Musoma railway line is hastened to enable affordable services to the Northern Zone, Lake Zone and the land locked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and South Sudah

However, according to government plans, the much awaited Tanga Line train services will have to wait much longer to be restored; in that its operations are integrated in the Mwambani port project ; a facility that is expected to go in tandem with construction of the Tanga – Arusha – Musoma railway.

‘The government has concern for reopening of the line, but its rehabilitation and eventual re launching will be included in the construction of the Mwambani port project,’ said Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, former Transport Minister at a press conference almost three years ago.

Source: IPP Media

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