Lucrative Dry Port encounters teething problems
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday November 11, 2016 15:59
The dry port facility, which is adjacent to the Namibian Port here, is operated by Sea Rail, a wholly owned subsidiary of Botswana Railways registered in Namibia.
The dry port offers containers handling, vehicles and warehousing. The 36,000 square metre port has about 300 parking bays that can handle 4,800 cars annually.
Currently the port has a P3.9 million facility which houses an administration block with the other developments expected to commence early next year once the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been completed.
According to the Dry Port manager, Derrick Mokgatlhe the port was established to provide efficient port services as well as empower the economies of Botswana and SADC by providing a gateway to the west coast. However, this has not been fruitful, as it has appeared that most of the locals still prefer to use the Durban route.
“Most of our targeted clientele still prefer the Durban route because some still have contracts but we have been in talks with them to consider us once they expire,” he said.
Mokgatlhe said they have established that the Durban port is more competitive compared to the Walvis Bay one as they have a rail and most of their products come from China. He however stated that they have put in place strategies to try and divert port users from the Durban one. “We have approached government to help us in this regard and proposed that they should include a clause in their tendering that the Walvis Bay port must be given priority. We have also been going around the country talking to our potential clientele which includes foreign missions and government parastatals that they should consider using the port,” he said.
Further he said they intend to aggressively market the port this year as they have already put a team unlike in the past where one person was running the office.
He said they are also busy procuring equipment to ensure efficiency at the port which includes fork lifts, trainer trucks which load and unload by itself, just to mention a few.
“We are a fresh team trying to consolidate all the activities that are supposed to be done at the port and market them to bring more business.
We also intend to target the small businesses unlike the Durban one which will give us a competitive edge,” he said.
Mokgatlhe said they also intend to diversify port routes for Botswana’s strategic commodities as well as increase access to international markets especially Europe and the Americas by having a dedicated port ground on the Atlantic Ocean for imports and exports.
According to the MD they intend to establish a footprint for future Trans Kalahari rail corridor development, improve efficiency to Botswana and SADC customers as a result of seeking less congested ports.
Trans Kalahari Corridor is a tarred highway corridor that stretches over 1,900km. It provides a direct route from Walvis Bay through Botswana to Johannesburg.
The Walvis Bay port facility has general housing as well as the potential to develop specialised warehousing being able to handle a combined tonnage of 80,000 tonnes.
The dry port has a container handling facility which handles 17,000 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) annually. It is designed to have a cold storage facility with the potential to handling up to 10,000 tonnes annually.
Walvis Bay, which is regarded as the gateway to the west, takes about 10 days to ship goods to Santos in Brazil, 18 days to New York and 16 days to Antwerp. Other routes include the 2,070 km route to Lusaka as well as the 2,202 km to Harare.
When stating the advantages of using the Dry Port, Mokgatlhe said the Walvis Bay Port is a congestion free port with competitive turnaround times complemented by first class infrastructure and equipment ensuring a safe and reliable cargo handling with zero pilferage.
The port has introduced maximum security measures and procedures and is international ship and port facility security code compliant.
The turnaround time for container vessels is 12 to 15 hours and currently the port handles five million tonnes and total capacity equips it to handle seven to eight million tonnes of cargo. Sea Rail is one of the four container terminals operated by Botswana Railways throughout southern Africa. Other terminals, Gabcon and Francon which handle 10,000 to 15,000 TEUs in containers per annum are fully active except the Sea Rail one which is still developing.