Parliament: Bagamoyo project not a threat to Dar Port

Dar es Salaam. The Parliament now wants the government to expedite the implementation of the Bagamoyo port using locally-sourced funds, saying it was in no way a threat to the Dar es Salaam sea gateway.

Executing the project would also help to decongest the Dar es Salaam port making it more efficient, it was said in Dodoma yesterday.

Tabling the Public Investment Committee (PIC)’s annual activities report Mr Jerry Silaa (Ukonga-CCM), said on top of speeding up its construction, the Bagamoyo Port should meet international standards to make it competitive.

“The ongoing expansion of the Dar es Salaam port is not enough to end a problem of decongestion,” said Mr Silaa who is the PIC chairman.

He added: “We need the Bagamoyo seaport and Kwala Dry port to supplement the existing ports to make them competitive.”

He said during the first half of the current financial year, which runs from July- to December 2022, the Dar es Salaam port handled 10.4 million tonnes of cargo, the highest figure to be recorded in the country’s history.

This suggests that the potential for Tanzania as the region’s main sea gateway is limitless and calls for additional capacity in port infrastructure.

The Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) director general, Mr Plasduce Mbossa told editors in Bagamoyo in August, 2022 that the planned Bagamoyo Port was important if Tanzania was to effectively create capacity for the ever increasing demand.

He said it was due to the importance of having a port that could effectively handle larger ships that cannot be handled by the Dar es Salaam port that TPA decided to proceed with the Bagamoyo project despite the pulling out of investors who had been negotiating with the government in the past.

“In fact, we are no longer talking about the wider $10 billion project because some people will be asking as to where all this money would come from. We are talking only about the port development component for the wider Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone project,” he said, adding: “We can even decide to start with a single berth or two berths. As a government, we cannot stay put just because we have not yet found investors to partner with.”

The focus, he said, was to develop Tanzania’s ports by emulating how such facilities in Singapore and Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates were aiding economic activities and reduction of prices to final consumers.

The government signed a framework agreement in 2013 with China Merchants Holdings International (CMHI) and Oman’s State General Reserve Fund to build the port as part of the Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone (BSEZ).

The plan to create the BSEZ started in 2004 as part of the Tanzania Mini Tiger Plan 2020 which sought to transform Tanzania into a trade and logistics hub in the region and that was being estimated that the entire BSEZ would cost $10 billion (about Sh23 trillion).

However, the Fifth Phase administration of the late John Magufuli dismissed the project, saying it was exploitative and inappropriate.

But when she spoke to members of the business community in June last year (2021), President Samia Suluhu Hassan said her administration had restarted the negotiations to revive the project.

Mr Mbossa told editors in August last year that while cargo handling capacity at Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara ports is estimated to reach 27.5 million tonnes in the fiscal year 2024/25, TPA expects that its ports will receive 26.1 million tonnes of cargo in fiscal year 2024/25.

“This means that the cargo volume that we expect to receive will be 94.9 percent of our ports’ capacity. This also suggests that any boom in cargo will see us struggling to handle it if we do not create more capacity ahead of demand,” he said.

At Bagamoyo, the focus will be to have a deeper port that can handle ships that require a depth of more than 17 meters to berth.

On the contrary, the Dar es Salaam Port has a depth of about 14.5 metres.

That means ships built under the 4th Generation Shipbuilding Technology could effectively berth at Bagamoyo Port while the same cannot berth at the Dar es Salaam port.

It is TPA’s belief that an efficient port will reduce the cost of products that have to be transported via the country’s seaports.

“So if someone wants to bring cargo here on a ship that requires a berth of 17 meters, then we should be able to accommodate it because as TPA our primary focus is not on revenues but rather on how we facilitate economic activities in a manner that reduces costs on the final consumer,” he said.

In the 2021/22 financial year, TPA handled 20.6 million tonnes of cargo, which was 16.2 percent more than the 17.8 million tonnes that was handled in the preceding year.

The Dar es Salaam port accounted for the lion’s share of the volume. Revenues clocked Sh1 trillion for the first time in TPA’s history during the 2021/22 financial year.

In a wider plan to decongest the Dar es Salaam port, the Parliament also resolved yesterday that the government should work on the issues that were delaying the kicking off of the Kwala Dry Port, which is the extension of the Dar es Salaam port.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Works and Transport (Transport docket) Gabriel Migire told The Citizen on Tuesday last week that Kwala Dry Port in the Coast Region is set to begin operations this month, a key development that would decongest the Dar es Salaam seaport.

The government had already secured the dry port operating license from the Tanzania Shipping Agencies Corporation (Tasac).

Tanzania Shipping Agents Association (Tasaa) vice chairman Daniel Malongo welcomed the Parliament’s resolutions, saying with decongestion of the Dar es Salaam port, there will be a better turnaround of vessels and thus attract more to use it.

“The Dar port has no space. Kwala is an immediate and medium term solution to the problem,” he told The Citizen yesterday.