The Kenya Ports Authority(KPA) has begun offloading cargo from a barge that ran aground more than two months ago as it exited the Mombasa Port for the neighbouring Dar es Salaam while carrying 209 containers.
The Mombasa port manager said some 96 cargo containers have so far been offloaded from the grounded vessel owned by Comarco but hired by Ms I Messina. The barge ran aground on May 29 off the Leven Reef.
KPA Managing Director William Ruto however that strong winds and waves have hampered the process of salvaging both the vessel and its cargo consignment.
“Despite several attempts over a two-week period using tugboats, the rescue efforts led by KPA were hampered by adverse monsoon winds experienced between June and July 2024. Consequently, salvage operations were suspended to wait for the weather to subside,” he said.
The KPA boss said a lighter vessel would be deployed to evacuate all the cargo containers from the grounded barge.
“Following thorough preparations, the operations commenced last Wednesday, resulting in the successful transfer of 96 containers to date. It is anticipated that the exercise will be completed with all containers transferred and the barge 3651 refloated by Saturday, August 10, 2024, subject to weather conditions,” Mr Ruto said.
The Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA)– agency in charge of regulatory oversight over the Kenyan maritime industry—this week raised concern over the delay in removing the grounded vessel, saying it risks damaging the reef.
“We have been following up the matter on the delay of towing the vessel which the operators blame on high tides but we have asked relevant bodies to resume the salvage process to avoid any further environmental degradations,” KMA Maritime Research officer John Omondi said.
“As KMA, we are continuously conducting a risk assessment to ensure no pollution as we urge owners of the consignment to make alternative means to offload the cargo.”
The Mombasa port has been using small vessels to boost its transhipment of cargo to Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, and Comoros which has helped improve cargo throughput which increased from 1.43 million metric tonnes in 2021 to 1.62 million metric tonnes in 2023.
To improve the numbers, the government is mulling chartering vessels to undertake local transshipments of cargo in a bid to recover more than Sh600 billion in revenue currently going to foreign registered vessels annually.
With Mombasa Port handling more than 2 million containers annually, once the government invokes the cabotage law under the Merchant Shipping Act will allow and facilitate the planned sea-borne transhipment plan thus gaining billions of shillings in revenue.
According to KMA, once the law is implemented, Kenya will start chartering vessels from other shipping lines and take over the responsibility of transshipments of cargo from Mombasa as the hub port to other ports in the region.
