Travel 

Sunday, September 28, 2014 

$2m earmarked for Mtwara improvement

ARUSHA, Tanzania - Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) has approved Tsh2.95 billion (about $1.77 million) for the improvement of Mtwara port this year writes ELISHA MAYALLAH.

This has been revealed by Mtwara Port Assistance Manager, Musiba Fikiri during during a briefing for the media when they toured the port which is located in the southern part of Tanzania.

Fikiri told East African Business Week, the port cargo traffic performance has increased by 23.9% annually for the past six years. 

“Through this fund, the port will be able to buy new facilities such as harbour cranes, tractors, trailers and expands the cargo yard fence,” he said.

Last year 2013/2014 cargo traffic reached 356,356 tons for both loaded and offloaded cargo, this means there is tremendously improvement with regard to port services.

According to him, the improvement of Mtwara port has attracted many ships to dock at the port as for the past four years the numbers of these ships have been increased to 39.4% annual.

Mtwara port has been chosen as the supply base port for the companies involved into exploration and production of natural gas in Mtwara.

“For last year, we received 65 international vessels, which is the highest number since this port established, and we expect more new marine vessel to dock here this year,” he added.

He said due to the increase of port activities, TPA has already occupied 26,800 hectares of land for port expansion in the near future, under the project worth $241 million to construct a modern free port zone. 

The implementation of this project will be undertaken through public-private partnership (PPT), and now TPA is in the process of finding private partners who will invest in the project, Fikiri told his visitors.

He stressed that the project aimed to prepare and building capacity to the port so as to handle more shipment when Tanzania starts to produce and export Liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the global market.

Mtwara port is among three major ports which is operating under Tanzania ports authority, established in 1950’s aimed on transportation of cash crops produced in Mtwara and Lindi regions such as cashew nuts with injected capacity to handle 400,000 tons of bulk cargo, but due to the recently natural gas discoveries in Mtwara and Lindi the port is expected to become a very busy port within a region when offshore natural gas production to commence.

According to TPA, Mtwara can handle up to 750,000 meric tonnes with the same number of berths if additional equipment are put in place for handling containerised traffic.

By Elisha Mayallah, Sunday, September 28th, 2014