Shippers in Africa have been told to prepare to absorb extra costs caused by congestion in the regional ports following increased global container traffic, which have also stretched global port capacities.
Experts say this perennial problem dogging most ports in Africa could take up to 15 years of infrastructural and other logistics enhancement to be solved. This is in contrast to other parts of the world where it would take a far much shorter period. This is as a result of African governments’ bureaucracy.Global ports are currently recording increased container traffic, leading to congestion at even reputable ports like Liverpool, Southampton in England, Colombia, Kochi, Mumbai and Karachi in India and Sydney in Australia.
Others, according to a World Bank report, are Santos and Buenos in South America while those in North America are Los Angeles and Oakland. In Africa, they include the ports of Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Durban and Abidjan, among other smaller ports. Kenya has embarked on improving it's ports and harbours and is putting stringent measures to improve and maintain efficiency to be among the most valued ports.
