Six  million tonnes of conventional cargo will be evacuated from the port of Mombasa by rail every year once the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) relief line two extending from berth 11 to berth number one becomes operational.

Speaking to press at the Port of Mombasa, SGR Project Manager for Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) at the Mombasa port, David  Arika said the 2.8 kilometers relief line two project is complete and ready for use.

He said the port is recording high growth in cargo handling as a result of the SGR commercial operations which began in January this year.

Arika also said the new line would enable loading of 200, 000 units of vehicles directly from the vessels to the train wagons.

“Dynamic testing has been done and it has confirmed that the line is ready for use. What is left is to put safety measures inside the port in line so that the train can now start accessing all the way to berth number one,” said the project manager.

Arika said the relief line two targets bulky and heavy cargo like steel, clinker, iron and cement into the SGR trains.

He added that plans were on course to establish another one kilometre siding extension from the port to grain bulk storage through public private partnership to the tune of Sh.3 billion.

He said this would enable seamless evacuation cargo from grain bulk and other companies’ storages within the port to other parts of the country.

This, he said, would increase the number of cargo tonnage evacuated from the port facility to Nairobi South station where the offloading takes place.

But while seamless evacuation of cargo has been one of KPA’s key ambitions towards achieving port efficiency, congestion at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Nairobi remained a setback according to authorities.

Arika said while the initial cargo clearance target in Nairobi was supposed to be maximum six hours, myriads of reasons, including customs clearance logistics have made the six hours evacuation target almost insurmountable.

“Now we have cargoes lying uncollected at the ICD for several days. Road A which joins Southern bypass alongside ongoing plans to expand the ICD capacity will help ease the congestion currently being experienced’ Arika said.

According to the official, KPA is targeting to expand the ICD storage capacity using adjacent lands.

Source Kenya News

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