DAR PORT TANZANIA

Tanzania is to invite more port container terminal operators after halting a 25-year exclusivity contract given to Tanzania International Container Terminal Services.

This ends a three-year public outcry over the Cabinet’s decision to grant 15 more years for TICTS to be the sole operator of the container terminal and cargo handling at the Dar es Salaam port.

It is expected that the open competition in the sector will attract more players, thereby enabling the harbour to increase its effectiveness through speedy container clearance, which has been a serious operational problem that has even threatened to divert importers to the Mombasa port.

The port is a transport hub for several landlocked countries in East and Southern Africa.

The government and Tanzania International Container Terminal Services (TICTS) signed an addendum and memorandum of understanding to remove what lawmakers had termed the troublesome exclusivity clause from the TICTS contract that was said to have been extended from 10 to 25 years under dubious circumstances.

The Minister for Infrastructure Development, Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, said last week that the removal of the TICTS monopoly will increase efficiency, by allowing competition.

Dr Kawambwa said that this would in turn attract more business from landlocked countries that depend on the port for services and create more jobs.

The agreements were signed last week in Dar es Salaam by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure Development Omari Chambo, Tanzania Ports Authority Board chairman Raphael Mollel, a representative from Hutchicon Ports Holdings Wai Chau and TICTS chief executive officer Neville Bissett, witnessed by Dr Kawambwa and Deputy Minister for Finance, Omar Yussuf Mzee, on behalf of the Cabinet committee.

“The government wants to have more investors and those who will not be able to cope, are free to go,” he said adding that a number of investors had shown interest in investing at the port before negotiations to remove the clause began.

The road to negotiations for removing the clause was rough and uneasy, and at one time the government was about to give up and follow parliament’s directives to terminate the contract, but President Jakaya Kikwete demanded they continue with discussion, because early termination of the contract would mean massive losses for the government.