Two Nairobi based customs facilities are being expanded to handle cargo as part of the country’s preparation for the high-speed train.
Nairobi South Inland Container Hub, which is expected to be ready in May, will hold uncleared cargo, creating a micro-market for clearing and forwarding agents and container freight stations which are already being set up around the hub.
This will enable fast movement of goods as cargo destined for Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo will be loaded on express trucks for onward transmission in a seamless process undertaken on a digital platform which will also be connected to mobile tracking devices to be embedded on transit trucks.
The old Embakasi Inland Container Deport (ICD), currently under expansion, will handle goods for Nairobi customers under the pre-export verification of conformity rules.
According to Kenya Railways (KR) Chief Executive Atanas Maina, a 5.1 kilometre standard gauge railway line has been build connecting the two facilities’ reception and dispatch areas to fast-track cargo transportation. To realise the expected efficiency, Mr Maina said, new handling equipment including rail mounted container cranes, front loaders and transfer trucks have been procured for the two facilities.
Online platform
The statement said that all agencies involved in clearing goods including Kenya Railways, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Pests and Control Board, Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and Kenya Ports Authority will open offices which will be interlinked via a secured online platform which customers will use to clear goods.
“A high speed cargo locomotive docking at Embakasi with its load of 216 twenty foot double stacked containers will see its cargo offloaded in a record six hours 30 minutes. ‘‘However, the cargo could spend longer at the depot owing to clearance challenges that now largely depend on the customer,” he said. Upon expansion of its facilities coupled with digitisation of cargo handling processes, the ICDs are expected to handle an average of 405,000 containers annually compared to 180,000 they have been handling in the past.
Export and import tasks will also be handled at the ICDs thereby ending the headache traders are subjected to in tracking their goods up to Mombasa port.
While each Rift Valley Railway train handles an average of 1,000 tonnes of cargo and a truck ferries 36 tonnes per trip, the new SGR locomotive will ferry 4,000 tonnes.
Source: Business Daily Africa
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