WALKING THE TALK: BUILDING A PROSPEROUS TANZANIA

TANZANIA continues to attain significant development progress in almost every sector, with the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) remaining to be the main door to other countries relying on its ports for export and imports of their goods.
This is why, the TPA has commitment to improve services at all its ports, in line with the government’s vision to make Tanzania a business hub in the region.
TPA’s Director, Corporate Planning, Quality and Risk Management, Dr Boniphace Nobeji, made the statement here over the weekend, adding that a lot of technological changes and expansion work are taking place.
He said TPA oversees operations in some 86 official ports in the country with 23 being along the Indian Ocean, 29 on the shores of Lake Victoria, 22 on Lake Tanganyika and 12 others on Lake Nyasa.
Speaking on behalf of the Director General, Plasduce Mbosa, on the priorities and implementation of the 2022/23, he said TPA is implementing its four priority areas as indicated in the 4th Corporate Strategic Plan 2021/22-2025/26.
He named them as improving the port’s infrastructure and having in place modern equipment needed for ship and cargo services.
TPA is also working on having sustainable human and financial resources as well as adopting modern information and communications technology (ICT), required for different types of ships, cargo and national systems to smoothly operate.
Others are to increase cargo services to the neighboring countries served by Tanzanian ports and strengthen security and environmental safety during service delivery, as well as working in accordance with international guidelines.
Dr Nobeji made the explanations while briefing journalists on the activities of TPA, achievements in the 2021/2022 and plan for the 2022/2023 financial year.
He said between July 2021 to June, 2022, TPA handled 20.665 million tonnes of cargo, an increase of 16 per cent from the 17.775 million tonnes of cargo in the period between July, 2020 to July last year.
It also handled 823,404 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the same period, being 12 per cent increment from 735,442 TEUs in the previous year.
He said car cargo handled at the Dar es Salaam Port in the period between July last year and July 2022 was 203,932, equivalent to an increase of 38 per cent from 147,566 cargo in the previous year.
On the other hand, cargo on transit to neighboring countries through Dar es Salaam Port reached 7.801 million tonnes between the period of July last year to July 2022-it represents an increase of 39.9 per cent from 5,580 million tonnes of transit cargo handled by the port from July 2020 to July 2021.
Dar es Salaam Port, he said serves neighboring countries of DR-Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, the Comoro and South Sudan.
In terms of revenue, the director noted that TPA managed to collect 1.095tri/- between July, 2021 to July 2022, being 97.5 per cent of the target and an increase of 20.3 per cent from 910.4bn/- collected in the corresponding period of July 2020 to July 2021.
On the 2022/2023 plan, he noted that TPA targets a revenue of 1,224.405bn/-, where expenditure was expected at 866.6051bn/- and excess of 358.354bn/- before tax.
Out of this, the budget allocated to projects and investments, including purchase of equipment was 762.606bn/-, where 662.493bn/- was revenue from own sources and 100.112bn/- from the government.
He said the budget will go in equipping Dar es Salaam Port with new equipment like Rubber Tyred Gantry crane (RTG), Ship to Shore Gantry Crane (SSG), Tug Boat, Reach Stalkers, All Terrain Mobile Crane and ForkLifts with different container handling capacities.
In terms of successes, he said the port hosted and served the .MV. Gland Duke Panama towed 4,041 vehicles, being the first of its kind in the history of Tanzania.
It also received and served MV Pope John that had 41,000 tonnes shipment cargo. He said Tanga port served some big ships with petroleum cargo like MT. UACC Sila that offloaded 39,811.762 tonnes, Mv.Nod Joy that offloaded 36,448 tonnes and MV. Silver Zoe which offloaded 38,446 tonnes-all totaling to 114,707 tonnes.
Shedding light on the success of TPA recently, the Minister for Works and Transport, Professor Makame Mbarawa said the sixth phase government has focused and banked a lot on strengthening and investing in the transport sector (aviation, railways, marine and port services) as the backbone of the economy.