THE laying of a foundation stone at Bagamoyo Port scheduled for Friday has been described as probably the biggest goodbye present to the country by the Fourth Phase Government.
Speaking at a briefing with the media, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Bernard Membe, after he met with officials from China Merchants Group, said that the proposed port is President Jakaya Kikwete’s largest project investment to the nation.
“The construction of the port which is expected to take between 5 and 7 years is a mega investment project which will cover about 2,400 hectares and already efforts to compensate people’s land are underway,” he said.
Mr Membe said that three years ago, China Merchants Group won the bid to construct Bagamoyo Port and they will do this job alongside companies from the governments of Oman and Tanzania.
He said that apart from the port, an industrial park will be constructed that will house various factories engaged in cement production, gas that will support the park, textiles and hide factories.“In the talks we had with China Merchants Group, I was informed that there are plans to connect the Central Railway line and Tazara to the Bagamoyo Port and that to do so, an 80km long rail is required,” the minister noted.
Mr Membe said that once the port is complete, it is expected that economic growth will skyrocket and that because it is a natural harbour, there is every reason for it to be an international port.
The China Merchants Group Chief Executive Officer, Dr Hu Jiahua, said that they were excited to be part of the project and it was their intention of turning Bagamoyo into a dream port.
Meanwhile, Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) Manager Hebel Mhanga, said that the port is planning to start an Electronic Single Window System that will enable a person to see all port operations from the country of their origin.
Mr Mhanga said that they hope to have this system in place by next year and that this will go a long way in minimising the pinch of demurrage charges that importers have to go through.
“In our bid to increased efficiency, we want to introduce more digital services and have already got in place a billing system, e-payment and are currently finalising a contract with a company to have an Enterprise Resource Planning system, an essential tool to track business resources - cash, raw materials and production capacity,” he explained.
Speaking about the visit by officials from China Merchants Group, Mr Mhanga said that the purpose of their visit was to see the efficiency of the Dar es Salaam Port and ascertain whether there was need for the construction of another port in Bagamoyo.
He said that as he had explained to the group, Dar es Salaam Port being in the middle of the city has no more room to expand and that with an annual cargo increase of 10 per cent, it is thus justifiable to construct another port.
/Daily News.
Well. J Kikwete already signed contracts with Chinese to serve the neck of his son Ridwan Kikwete. Ask any Tanzanian in government they will tell you.
A new Bagamoyo Port is not going to compete with the Port of Mombasa same as TAZARA and TRC are not competing with the Northern Mombasa railway.
Instead, a new Bagamoyo Port is going to compete with the Tanzanian Ports of Mtwara, Dares Salaam and Tanga in a very destructive way which transforms them all into under-exploited port capacities/white elephants.
Priorities should have been to invest some of the billions of US$ in the development of Mtwara Port-Railway corridor and the rest of them in the development of the Stigler's Gorge hydro power generation potential plus one or two local nuke power generation plants (a minimum of new 8,000 cheap-global competitive megawatts of electricity) to stimulate investments along our railway corridors and justify the need for a new Bagamoyo Port.
To some degree your arguement holds some merit. However, I would be less concerned if Dar port withers on account of the presence of a more competitive and more efficient port in Bagamoyo. I do not know what ails Dar port, but it has been a big let down to the nation for so long that I will not shed a tear if it dies a natural death because of its noncompetitiveness nature. Bagamoyo should aim to eclipse Mombasa, especially in regional trade. There should be no reason whatsoever for countries' like Burundi, Rwanda, DRC depending on Mombasa for their maritime trade. In that mix you may throwin Zambia, Malawi and even Uganda. Mtwara can be developed to specialise in gas related business, while Tanga can deal with oil related business. All that hinges on a well planned support infrastructure that shoud avoid the current bottlenecks beseting Dar port.
How Chinese merchant group want to see the efficiency of Dar port to make their mind after they already won the contract to construct and operate Bagamaoyo port? I thought they should have satisfied themselves during tendering session prior to signing contract.
Tanzania government should ensure they are certain and thorough with the contract signed and all details are clear right now, if need more experts to scrutinize they must do so including involving member of parliament, prior to commence construction works.
The problem always is not to start construction, arguments and crying fowl of loosing revenue starts after completion of the projects where parties may be told that the cost is 15 billion usd instead of 10 billions, hence the operator will have to recover their investments of 15 billions usd , instead of initial 10 billion usd during operation before they can break even on investment. The best way of such mega project is to be fully transparent in all deals starting with the contract itself.
Second issue shall be the close monitoring of the construction from foundation to completion and test and commissioning, to ensure all materials and methodologies, specifications meets the original agreed set up in the contract, or if the project was signed in hasty, without detailed engineering documents, they must be established as supplementary documents prior to construction, this is very important as 10 billions will be spent irrespective of who is paying , that is the cost of the project, hence it is vital to ensure no substandard material are used or equipment of low standard which may pose high maintenance cost in the future and have shorter life span. All these will increase the operating cost which may reduce anticipated profits.
Therefore independent company should be employed to conduct the thorough checking of all documents and compliance prior to construction.
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