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Mombasa be Kidding Me: East Africa Logistics Nightmare

January 10, 2012

We got some unfortunate news out of East Africa Today concerning new containers shipping out of Mombasa.  

Port Situation
Currently there are 12 vessels at anchorage outside Mombasa port, waiting for a berth place. The longest waiting period being for Mv Santa Rosa having arrived on 24 December 2011. Average waiting time for berths is currently approx 8 to 10 days. The port is generally congested and operations slowed down substantially.
 
Trucking situation
In the past few weeks big quantities of sugar for the whole region have reached the port of Mombasa. Since the Kenya Government has given particular conditions on the movement of sugar, the focus was and currently still is on removal and transport of this commodity with subsequent shortage of trucking capacity and a general increase in rates. This situation was furtherer worsened by the problems with the URA system at the change of year from 2011 to 2012. Hundreds of trucks were stranded at the various border points adding to the shortage of trucking capacity in Mombasa.
 
Rail situation
RVR have some 800 containers pending railage to Kampala and approx 450 to Nairobi. With the bottle neck on road movement, many clients had swopped cargo from road to rail thus overwhelming the rail system as well. RVR have stopped acceptance of new rail shipments in an attempt to move the back log.
 
So, all of that being said, please anticipate East African delays this year!
 
-The Cafe Imports Team

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Posted by Noah