By Allan Olingo
Monday September 19, 2022
Transhipment cargo at the Naivasha Inland Container Depot (ICD). FILE PHOTO | NMG
This week’s order by Kenyan President William Ruto to revert
cargo clearing services to the port of Mombasa could upset China and Uganda,
the port’s biggest clients, and trigger anxiety among major players who depend
on it.
The order, issued as President Ruto took office, is set to
have far-reaching ramifications.
The key question is what China’s reaction will be, given
that Kenya must still meet its end of the bargain on the standard gauge railway
(SGR) cargo operation numbers and debt repayments.
But more importantly, will be whether port operations’
efficiency that has currently seen goods reach Uganda in a record four days
after being offloaded at the Mombasa port will continue. The shortened time was
due to the seamless systems that directly fed the SGR, and onwards to the
Nairobi Inland Container depot and the Naivasha dry port.
Kenya’s move also comes as neighbour Tanzania steps up its
efforts to connect the Dar es Salaam port with other East African countries
through the Central Corridor.
Speaking on Tuesday in his first address to the nation after
his swearing-in as the fifth president of Kenya, President Ruto defended his
move to undo the policy of his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta.
He said his actions were aimed at restoring thousands of
jobs that had been lost in the logistics sector in Mombasa when former
president Kenyatta issued an order for all cargo coming through the port of
Mombasa to be hauled by the SGR, and cleared at either Nairobi or the Naivasha
Inland Container Depot (ICD).
“This afternoon, I will be issuing instructions for
clearance of all goods and other attendant operational issues to revert to the
port of Mombasa. This restores thousands of jobs in the city of Mombasa,” said
President Ruto on Tuesday. But even as cargo operations are ordered back to
Mombasa, the question now is how Kenya will repay the SGR loan considering that
the repayments will more than double in the financial year starting this July,
when there will be increased payment of principal sums to the Exim Bank of
China for the project.
Exim Bank of China funded 90 per cent of the $3.6 billion
line from Nairobi to Mombasa.
Kenya’s Treasury projects debt repayments to Exim Bank of
China will rise to $800 million in the next financial year, a 126.61 per cent
surge from the revised $351.7 million budgeted for this year. Redemptions to
the Chinese lender will increase to $605.16 million, from $174.98 million this
year. Interest obligations will rise 8.55 per cent to $191.88 million, from
176.7 million, according to Treasury data tabled in the National Assembly.
Set volumes
According to the take-and-pay agreement, the Kenya Ports
Authority undertook to consign to Kenya Railways a set volume of freight and
cargo in order to collect adequate funds to pay off the SGR loan.
According to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau
of Statistics, in the first six months of this year, SGR recorded a total of
$750 million in revenue. Some $610 million was for cargo volumes with revenue
for the past five years totalling $4.6 billion. Passenger revenues were $760
million over the same period, an indication that SGR depends on freight to
remain afloat.
In December 2019, then-president Kenyatta flagged off a
cargo train from Nairobi to Naivasha, marking the start of operations at the
Inland Container Depot. Soon after, he issued an order to evacuate onward cargo
to Naivasha.
Kenyatta’s administration forced importers to use the SGR to
ensure minimum guaranteed business to repay the $3.7 billion debt taken to
build it. The directive saw the government transfer goods clearance to
Naivasha, and enforced compliance, affecting thousands of workers and companies
in the logistics sector in Mombasa.
The move was met by protests from Uganda and South Sudan,
which are the main transit users of Mombasa port. They said then that Naivasha
lacked adequate cargo handling facilities, thus making the cost of transport to
their respective countries more expensive.
Protests
Long-distance cargo transporters also protested the
directive, saying the government’s move would raise the cost of doing business,
with the costs passed on to the final consumers of the imported goods. They
moved to the High Court to have the mandatory directive rescinded and
succeeded, but the government, through the KPA, appealed and the directive
stood.
To date, an appeal challenging orders quashing the directive
requiring all cargo to be transported to Nairobi and the hinterland exclusively
through the SGR is yet to be determined by the Court of Appeal.
Last November, the appellate court suspended the execution
of orders quashing the directive issued by a five-judge bench of the High
Court, pending hearing and determination of the appeal filed by the KPA.
KPA argued that the directives were meant to operationalise
the take-and-pay agreement, which is key to ensuring the loan for the
construction of the SGR is repaid without any hitches.
In his campaign rallies in the run-up to the presidential
election, Dr Ruto harped on the fact that the transfer of port operations to
Naivasha was against the agreement made during the conception and construction
of the SGR.
President Ruto said the Naivasha dry port was put up to
benefit a few individuals, and dealt a blow to the economy of Mombasa.
Contrary order
But as the new order to revert cargo clearance to Mombasa
takes effect, stakeholders now say it will be a blow to East African countries
that use the port, and is contrary to the contract between Kenya and China on
how to pay the loan.
“With the latest move by the current government, this means
the Naivasha ICD where five EAC countries were last month issued with title
deeds by former president Kenyatta, might cease to be lucrative. This means,
the investment at the dry port, a facility on more than 1,000 acres, which is
estimated to handle two million tonnes of cargo every year, will go to waste,”
said Simon Sang, secretary-general of the Dock Workers Union.
“We are asking the government to invest more in Malaba and
Busia borders to reduce congestion considering heavy traffic expected in the
coming months,” he added.
Most of the cargo handled at the Mombasa port is destined
for Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic
of Congo, which accounts for 30 percent of imports and exports through there.
Last month, Kenya concluded the issuance of title deeds to
five countries -- Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan -- to
establish dry ports in Naivasha, despite their earlier reluctance to use the
dry port as an alternative to Mombasa.
Then-president Kenyatta hosted the title deeds handing-out
ceremony in Naivasha, where a special economic zone is being established.
Uganda and South Sudan were offered land at the dry port in 2019, and since
then have done little by way of putting up the necessary infrastructure such as
cargo handling operations because of lack of a title deed as proof of
ownership.
Evacuating cargo
As the President Ruto directive is implemented, shippers say
the seamless connectivity from the vessel to SGR to Nairobi or Naivasha reduced
congestion, both at the port and also vehicular traffic along the Northern
Corridor.
The Shippers Council of Eastern Africa (SCEA) chief
executive Gilbert Lagat said the SGR idea was to fully connect port and border
towns. This would be via both the SGR and metre gauge railway (MGR) to minimise
costs.
Mr Lagat said the SGR and MGR shortened the time taken to
evacuate cargo from Mombasa to Malaba by 62 percent, and costs by 58 percent.
“What importers consider is cost and efficiency. If the
consignment reaches on time at the cheapest cost, that is what they will go
for. The introduction of the railway is what we have been pushing for as it
will give importers an alternative means of hauling their cargo considering
bottlenecks associated with the Northern Corridor,” said Mr Lagat.
He added that the new railway had reduced cases of cargo
loss as there is less diversion than is experienced with trucks.
The order by President Ruto will also derail Kenya Railway
Corporation’s move to improve efficiency by connecting Mombasa and Malaba via
rail. Starting this January, cargo from Mombasa port destined for Malaba was to
be loaded onto the SGR to Naivasha, from where it would be transshipped onto
the MGR line at the Naivasha ICD.
Faster by rail
The freight train and connectivity, if successfully
implemented, will take less than 40 hours to ferry cargo from Mombasa to Malaba
railway yard compared with by road transport which takes 96 hours. It would
also offer a cost reduction to $860 from $2,000 per container charged by road
hauliers.
Also by collecting goods from the Naivasha ICD, importers
from neighbouring countries will have reduced the distance covered by road
hauliers by more than 400 kilometres.
Kenya chose to rehabilitate its 100-year old MGR from
Naivasha to Malaba after it abandoned its bid to extend the SGR line to Kisumu,
and on to the Ugandan border, after failing to secure a multibillion-shilling
loan from China, which had funded the first and second phases of the SGR line.
Kenya Railway managing director Philip Mainga had said that
the freight train has the capacity to handle 120,000 containers annually.
In December 2021, KRC gazetted promotional charges to haul
cargo from Mombasa to Malaba at $860 for 20-foot container weighing up to 30
tonnes, while that above that cost $960. A 40-foot container above 30 tonnes
was charged at $1,100, and those above were charged $1,260 without considering
last mile cost. Since 2019, after the introduction of SGR freight train,
transporters and container freight owners have been counting losses as all
cargo ended up on the freight train to Nairobi and Naivasha.
As a result, container freight stations, which handled up to
95 percent of the cargo offloaded at Mombasa, were left to manage less than 10
percent of Mombasa-destined cargo.
Job losses
According to the Container Freight Stations Association
(CFSA), more than 4,000 workers lost their jobs since the launch of the SGR and
introduction of the mandatory haulage of cargo by train to Nairobi and Naivasha
ICDs.
“We had to let go more than half our workers as businesses
struggle. All these job losses have happened at the Mombasa port as a result of
the reduction in trucked cargo volumes,” said CFSA chief executive Daniel
Nzeki.
Kenya Transporters Association condemned the government’s
move to force importers to use the SGR saying it does not want to tell the
public the hidden costs of using the cargo train to ferry containers.
“It costs $860 including value added tax to transport a
20-foot container to and from Nairobi using a truck but the SGR costs more than
$920,” said KTA chairman Newton Wang’oo.
Kenya International Forwarding and Warehousing Association
chairman Roy Mwanthi echoed Mr Wang’oo’s sentiments, saying they now expect
business to return to normal.
“The move by President Ruto is commended and now we want the
executive order to be implemented immediately,” said Mr Mwanthi.
He added that the Naivasha Inland Container depot will
remain a futuristic spot, and that “the government facilities should be left
open to those willing to use them, and the government should make them
efficient”.