FLEETS of heavy-duty trucks traversing Ruvuma and Mtwara regions main road, signifies the growth of Mtwara Port the gateway to southern regions.
The trucks operate day and night transporting loads of coal from Ruvuma to Mtwara Port.
For Mtwara Regional Commissioner, Col Ahmed Abbas, this port is a blessing for people in southern regions and Tanzania at large, as it creates employment opportunities and promotes economic growth.
“This port is a gateway for economic growth. I feel so proud to have this terminal here and the regional authorities are always working closely with the port management to ensure the terminal remains fully operational,” the RC told the ‘Daily News’ yesterday.
Emphasising the importance of the port, Col Abbas said all strategic projects around the region highly depend on the existence of this port.
“The bulk cargo from Dangote Factory (cement), coal, cashewnuts and other general cargo highly depends on the port because tariffs of transportation through port are much cheaper compared to other means of transport,” he said.
Boasting its pride of being a natural harbour, Mtwara Port is the country’s strategic terminal that plays a significant role in facilitating cargo transport for the southern regions of Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma.
This port also serves as an ideal gateway to the outside world for commodity exports and imports for some parts of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) member states such as Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia.
No wonder, the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) through the support of the government has massively invested in the expansion of the terminal at the cost of 157bn/-.
The expansion project was completed in 2020. The project included construction of a new berth, measuring 300 metres in length and 13.5 metres in depth. The project now enables the port to accommodate mega ships weighing 65000 tonnes.
Before it was expanded, the port capacity was to accommodate cargo ships with 40,000 tonnes (Dead Weight-DWT). The facility was operating with an old 380 metre berth only. With the new 300 metre berth now fully functional, the port is currently measuring a total length of 680 metres, capable of handling three big ships of 200 metres each at a go.
Traditionally, Mtwara Port was mainly regarded as a port for transporting groundnuts that were being cultivated in abundance in Nachingwea District, Lindi Region especially during the pre and post independence period.
However, due to myriads of reasons including climate change, the cultivation of groundnuts collapsed as farmers switched to cashewnuts, which is still a dominant cash crop in Southern regions.
And, for many years before it was massively upgraded, the port had been operating seasonally especially during the cashewnuts harvesting season. It was mainly shipping out cashewnuts to Asia and other parts of the world.
However, things are changing rapidly as the port is currently operating 24/7 and 12 months a year. Coal, cement, farm inputs such as sulphur, fertiliser, home appliances and many other goods are being shipped in and out through this port.
In fact, the volume of cargo handled by Mtwara Port has more than doubled in the past financial year, thanks to the coal mining, which significantly boasted exports through the port.
The port also receives between 7,000 to 10,000 tonnes of petrol, diesel and kerosene for supply in Southern regions every month.
Acting Mtwara Port Manager James Ng’wandu said much as export of cement from Dangote factory though the port continues to grow, there is also significant increase of coal being shipped out through this port since October 2021.
He said much as the port capacity is to handle one million tonnes of cargo annually, in the first half of the current financial year (July to December), the terminal handled a total of 779,233 tonnes of cargo, meaning by end of June this year, they will break even by handling more than the capacity.
He further said that out of the 779,233 tonnes of cargo consignment of coal totalled 614,380 tonnes. They have been exported to various parts of the world including the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Senegal, Ghana, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and India.
The port started receiving coal for export on October 31, 2021 and the actual tonnes loaded in total so far is 1,094,908 tonnes. The port receives at least five vessels per month loading coal.
Since the port started transporting coal in 202, it has earned a total of 19.22bn/-.
“We started slowly with one vessel that had the capacity of carrying 50,000 tonnes of coal per month but the figure is now surging and this January, we were able to transport 150,000 tonnes of coal,” he said.
The volume increased to 592,365 tonnes in the year to June 30, 2022 compared to 177,388 tonnes handled in 2020/2021.
According to the management, the port’s target was serving 377,700 tonnes per year.
Indeed, already, coal is dominating the exports for the current financial year, with July and August accommodating 169,571 tonnes out of 215,715 tonnes handled at the Mtwara Port.
The TPA is making enough to protect the environment, since transporting coal carries with it a volume of dust which is a threat to the environment and causes pollution to people living near this port.
“We have come up with short- and long-term plans to deal with the challenge. In short term plans, we have erected special nets at the compound where the coal is stored before being loaded into the ships,” he said.
The port is also using cannon dust to clean out dust from the coal as well as using water browsers at the trails and stockpiling.
Another short-term measure taken by the port is to install a conveyor belt system, to transport the coal from where it is stored to the vessels, whereby according to Acting Port Engineer, Stephan Kashushura, the port has set aside 9bn/- this financial year to start and complete the project.
The long-term plan is the construction of ‘Dirty’ Port at Kisiwa Mgao area, near Dangote Factory.
Mr Ng’wandu said this February, a tender will be floated for bidders to submit their bids and when the procedure is completed, construction will begin at an area of 25 hectares of land. The construction project will last for two or three years.
“This port (Kisiwa Mgao) will be strategic because it will also serve to transport cement, graphite from Ruangwa District, Lindi Region,” he said.
It will also be readily available for use when the much-touted Liganga and Mchuchuma project kick off.
“Required infrastructure will already be in place to support transportation of products from Liganga and Mchuchuma,” he said, while calling on the government to fast-track the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Mtwara to Mbamba Bay and other places of southern regions.
Mr Ng’wandu hailed the government for providing the port with a new Ship to Shore Gantry (SSG) Crane, which has the capacity of offloading containers 45 metres away from the ocean.
The crane is among three imported by the government, two for Dar es Salaam Port and another one for Mtwara Port.
“This new equipment arrived in the country from Ireland last September and it cost the government about 80 million Euros (about 200bn/-) to procure three cranes.
Mr Ng’wandu also said that the SSG crane will have the capacity to load or offload 25 containers per hour. It is in the final stages of completion and only waiting for official handing over procedure.
In terms of other equipment, the port has two standby power generators with an installed capacity of 1,000 KVA, according to Eng Kashushura.
The port also boasts having large mobile harbour cranes, five empty handlers, 13 forklifts, 14 terminal tractors and 20 trailers.
The major improvement of the term has helped improve the volume of business, earning the port 23bn/- last financial year compared to 11bn/- in 2020/2021.
