Parastatal heads along the northern corridor risk being sacked if they fail to deliver on the contents of the new port community charter they signed yesterday, President Uhuru Kenyatta warned.

The charter signed with the private sector aims to improve movement of cargo from the port into hinterland. A total of 13 public entities signed the charter.

They main ones include KPA, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Maritime Authority, Kenya National Highways Authority and Kenya Bureau of Standards among others. The president also appended his signature on behalf of the government.

It aims to convert the port into a landlord port in the next two years, achieve an average of 120,000 kilometers per truck from the existing 70,000kms and further grow off-take by rail to above 35 per cent by 2018 of the total throughput from below 10 per cent presently.

The initiative further targets to increase liquid handling capacity to 11 million tonnes by end of the year.

“…The charter commits to the reduction of turnaround times in the northern corridor; the integration of all port community members’ systems into the Kenya National Electronic Single Window System and the achievement of 70 per cent cargo output routed through the green channel by 2016,” said Uhuru.

It follows June 2013′s directive by the president that all public agencies at the port, coordinate their operations under the leadership of the Kenya Port’s Authority.

This has since reduced cargo transit period from Mombasa to Malaba to five days from the previous 18 days.

“It was encouraging to see that we reached that target in very little time, and with almost no new investment. This is a lesson – if a lesson was needed – that dedicated management and good systems and processes are as important as the infrastructure itself,” said the president.

Stakeholders from the private sector have long decried the high cost of transportation which they argue accounts for about 40 per cent of the total cost of goods.

Signatories to the charter committed to integrate all their systems to the Kenya National Single Window System launched in May.

He directed that all the implementation plans by the respective state corporations be incorporated into their annual performance contracts.

Transport and infrastructure cabinet secretary Michael Kamau said the chatter will lead to “quantum leap in the way we do business at the port and along the northern corridor”.

“Our competition is not with other ports. It is with a port called efficiency because we aspire like Singapore and Dubai ports,” he added.

See more at: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2014/07/01/uhuru-pushes-for-faster-cargo-movement-from-port_c963530

Source: The Star

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