Many British people are surprised that King Charles’s visit to Kenya was not welcomed by many Kenyans and human rights organisations. People whose families had suffered at the hands of British colonialists during his mother’s reign demanded an apology for crimes committed. Although the British monarch expressed “deepest regret” for the atrocities committed by the British in Kenya, he fell short of making a public apology.

However, many Brits believe that there is nothing the king needed to apologise for. One presenter on Sky News even wondered why Kenyans were calling for an apology from the king given that Britain had done much “good” in the country. After all, he said, without any hint of irony, the British Empire had brought democracy to Kenya (how he equated imperialism with democracy beats me) and given Kenyans “the gift of the English language”.

It was obvious that the presenter had been taught British imperial history that has whitewashed the atrocities that the British Empire committed in its colonies around the world. British children are to this day taught that British colonialism was a “civilising mission” that brought modern education and infrastructure, in addition to Christianity, to regions that were steeped in ignorance and backwardness. Apologists for the British Empire, such as the historian Niall Ferguson, author of Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, argue that Britain should be congratulated for conquering the world because British civilisation brought science and technology to people who held superstitious beliefs, and injected a “work ethic” in populations that were lazy and lacking in imagination. This is sort of like saying that slave owners did slaves a favour by shipping them to the Americas and forcing them to work for free because these slaves are now US citizens and enjoy all that America has to offer (even though it took them four centuries to gain rights as equal citizens).

A few months ago, the editor of a German magazine contacted me to ask whether I could submit an article on the atrocities the British had committed in Kenya during colonialism. He told me that while his magazine had documented human rights violations by German and Belgian colonialists in places like Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it had largely ignored the violations committed by Britain in places like Kenya because the majority of Germans believe that British colonialism was not as brutal as that of other European powers, and that its net impact on its colonies in Africa had been positive. It dawned on me that perhaps Europeans are not being told the true story about colonialism and its horrific impact on Africans. So, here’s primer.

Erasure of memory

Kenya officially became a British colony in 1920, but prior to that, from 1895, it was deemed a “protectorate” – a term suggesting that the colonisers who grabbed the land were there to protect the interests of the “natives” who would benefit from being colonised. A widely held belief is that because Britain spearheaded the abolition of slavery, the British were “benevolent” colonisers, unlike the French and the Belgians who plundered and looted their African colonies. (In addition to extracting raw materials and exporting items such as ivory and rubber, the French and the Belgians also stole invaluable artefacts from their colonies in West and Central Africa, which today are displayed in museums across Europe, including in Britain, despite efforts by African governments to have these artefacts returned to where they were stolen from.)

Yet, those who care to join the dots between the anti-slavery movement and the colonisation of Africa are acutely aware of the fact that the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 (dubbed the “Scramble for Africa”) that carved up Africa among European nations, including Britain, took place just a few years after slavery ended. Because slavery was no longer legal and was costly to maintain, the only other way Europeans could extract cheap labour and highly profitable resources from Africa was by colonising the continent.

In order to justify colonisation in settler colonies like Kenya and Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia), it was necessary to erase evidence of atrocities committed by the Europeans. Many of these atrocities remained unacknowledged and unreported for decades because archival documents were either destroyed or deliberately concealed. British historian David M. Anderson, author of Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya, discovered that thousands of documents belonging to the British colonial administration were flown to London in 1963 on the eve of Kenya’s independence and remained hidden from the public for decades, despite attempts by successive post-independence Kenyan governments to have these “stolen papers” returned to Kenya.

The magnitude of these atrocities was finally revealed in 2005 when the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins’ book, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, was published. The book documents the many crimes that British colonial officers committed in Kenya in their relentless pursuit of wealth, land and power for themselves and in the name of the British Empire. Mau Mau fighters and their supporters were subjected to extreme forms of torture, including castration, whipping, waterboarding and electric shocks.

The areas where these Mau Mau revolutionaries were arrested, detained, tortured or killed in the 1950s were in and around the Aberdares mountain range in Central Kenya where Queen Elizabeth, during an official visit to Kenya, ascended to the throne after the death of her father, King George VI, in February 1952. Eight months after she became Queen of England and head of the British Empire, a state of emergency was declared in Kenya that allowed the British Colonial Office to detain people without trial. Many freedom fighters languished in camps or jails where they were subjected to torture.

Mau Mau fighters and their supporters were subjected to extreme forms of torture, including castration, whipping, waterboarding and electric shocks.

The Mau Mau rebellion was a reaction to the expropriation of some 7 million acres of the most fertile land in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley – dubbed the White Highlands – in the early part of the 20th century after the building of the Uganda Railway, which opened up the interior of East Africa for British colonisation and settlement. The indigenous population was pushed into so-called reserves while others became squatters on land that was once theirs, working for white farmers for very little wages.

Elkins estimates that between 160,000 and 320,000 detainees, mostly from the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu ethnic groups, were tortured or maimed by the British at the height of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s, although official figures state that the number of detainees was no more than 80,000. It is estimated that more than 20,000 Mau Mau militants were killed. Further, more than a million people, mainly in central Kenya, were detained in camps or confined in villages known as “reserves” (which have been described as “concentration camps”) surrounded by barbed wire. Tens of thousands of people held in these dense and unsanitary guarded camps and villages died from hunger or disease.

To justify these atrocities, British officials painted the Mau Mau as savage “terrorists” because of the violent and brutal methods they used to hunt down and kill white settlers and local informers. Official figures show that Mau Mau fighters killed 32 British settlers and 1,819 indigenous people whom they believed to be spies for the British.

Today what the British Empire did in Kenya might be perceived as a form of ethnic cleansing, but because colonisation was not unfashionable then, the atrocities were not condemned, nor was anyone tried. It was only in 2011, during a landmark court case brought against the British by a group of Mau Mau veterans, that the British government, under legal pressure, admitted that the documents were in a high-security facility that also contained files from 36 other former British colonies. (In 2013, 5,228 Mau Mau veterans were awarded £20 million in compensation by a UK court, which amounts to roughly £3,000 per victim, a paltry sum given the suffering they endured.) One of these documents contained details of eight colonial officers stationed in Kenya “roasting detainees alive”. All of the accused officers were granted amnesty.

Official amnesia 

Official amnesia and disinformation were not just part of a deliberate campaign by the British Empire to whitewash the crimes it committed in its colonies in Africa and elsewhere, but also a strategy employed by post-colonial governments in Kenya to cloak their own complicity in ensuring that British interests in the country were preserved.

Post-independence Kenyan elites benefitted from colonial policies that alienated Africans from their own land and became the biggest beneficiaries of post-independence land grabs disguised as land redistribution or adjudication. After independence, the so-called home guards or loyalists became the biggest beneficiaries of land and political power. According to Kenya’s 2013 Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission report, “Rich businessmen and businesswomen, rich and powerful politicians who were loyal to the colonial administration, managed to acquire thousands of acres at the expense of the poor and the landless.” Hence, “instead of redressing land-related injustices perpetrated by the colonialists on Africans, the resettlement process created a privileged class of African elites, leaving those who had suffered land alienation either on tiny unproductive pieces of land or landless.” Even today in Kenya, members of freedom fighting movements like the Mau Mau remain landless and poverty-stricken while those who sided with the colonialists are among the richest people in the land.

After independence, the so-called home guards or loyalists became the biggest beneficiaries of land and political power.

The Mau Mau remained a proscribed organisation for four decades after independence. It was only in 2003, when Mwai Kibaki became president, that the Mau Mau were recognised for the role they had played in Kenya’s struggle for independence. Kenyatta Day on 20 October was renamed Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) to commemorate all those who died while fighting for freedom. In 2007, a statue of Dedan Kimathi was erected in Nairobi’s central business district, and in 2015, following the 2013 UK court decision to compensate Mau Mau veterans, the British government put up a Mau Mau memorial sculpture in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park “as a symbol of reconciliation between the British government, the Mau Mau and all those who suffered”.

Despite these symbols of reconciliation and healing, the traumatic legacy of British colonialism lingers in Kenya to this day. This is why Kenyans were demanding an apology from the King – because the wounds have not yet healed. While a public apology might not have been enough to completely heal the wounds and traumas of the past, it would have been an important first step.

It is astounding that the president of the United States, the so-called leader of the free world, could fly to Israel to offer more military support to a regime that has no qualms about committing mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza. President Joe Biden’s offer of more military assistance worth billions of dollars to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has deeply dismayed not just the Palestinians in Gaza who are being killed by the thousands by US weapons, but also the millions of people and several human rights organisations around the world who believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza could amount to genocide.

To add insult to injury, Biden offered a puny US$100 million – a tiny fraction of the amount in military aid to Israel – to the more than two million Gazans whose houses are being bombed and who are now being denied basics such as food, water and electricity by the occupying Israeli state. This goes to show where the US’s priorities lie.

What the US president failed to recognise is that the Palestinians would not need this humanitarian assistance if Israel had not imposed a blockade on Gaza. The blasé attitude of the US government (and indeed of the Western media, which appears to have become a mouthpiece for US and Israeli propaganda) towards the slaughter taking place in Gaza clearly shows that there is a hierarchy among the world’s war victims. So, there is deep sympathy and support for Ukrainians who are being bombed and made homeless by Russia but Palestinians being killed and being denied food and water are seen as deserving of their fate.

The hypocrisy of the US government is now clearly on full display. How could Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine amount to a war crime but the assault on Gaza – the world’s largest open-air prison – and the denial of food, water and electricity to a people whose every move is controlled by Israel not be seen as collective punishment, which is also considered a war crime? As someone on Twitter stated, the world has finally seen the true face of the United States government – it has lost its moral authority to preach human rights and democracy to the world.

While the actions of Hamas cannot be condoned (killing Israeli civilians and taking them hostage are war crimes), there is little effort on the part of the US to understand why people who have been caged for decades might revolt against their captors. There is little attempt to acknowledge that Palestinians were turned into refugees on their own land by the Israeli state. And there is a huge blind spot when it comes to demanding accountability from Israel, which many have described as an “apartheid state”.

Even before the current crisis, Gazans had no control over their water and electricity supplies, which are controlled by Israel. Palestinians could not move freely within their territory or travel abroad. It is ironic that the Jewish people, who suffered unspeakable atrocities during the Second World War, are now inflicting similar atrocities on non-Jewish people. (Although it must be said that a sizeable number of Jews within Israel and elsewhere have vehemently opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza.) Palestinians have essentially lost their right to full citizenship. They are being punished for demanding freedom and dignity. Let us look at it this way: If a victim of domestic violence kills her abuser, would she be deemed a murderer or would a court rule that it was an act of self-defence? If slaves stage a rebellion against their owners, would they be accused of insubordination? When colonised people take up arms to fight for their freedom, are they terrorists or freedom fighters?

It is ironic that the Jewish people, who suffered unspeakable atrocities during the Second World War, are now inflicting similar atrocities on non-Jewish people.

What’s worse, the United Nations Security Council, which was created in 1945 specifically to prevent wars from occurring or escalating, has not been able to pass a resolution condemning Israel for its actions and calling for a ceasefire because the United States – one of the five permanent veto-holding members of the Security Council that contributes up to 20 per cent of the UN’s budget – vetoed a proposed resolution even though the majority of the Security Council members supported it.  The question we must ask as members of the international community is: What is the point of having a UN Security Council when it cannot prevent wars?

The power of the P-5

The UN Security Council was established in 1945 after the Second World War. The Council consists of 15 members, 10 of which are rotational non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. The non-permanent members may have a say in decisions made by the Security Council, but the ultimate decision rests with the five permanent veto-holding members, namely the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China—also known as the P-5. So, if one of the P-5 members decides to go to war, to support war criminals or to supply arms to a warring faction or state, there is nothing the rest of the members can do about it. Any resolution condemning these actions can be vetoed by a permanent veto-holding member.

The UN Security Council is, therefore, not a club of equals. The ten non-permanent members of the 15-member Council do not pose a serious threat to the five veto-holding members of the Council although membership does give these countries the illusion of being influential. Take the case of Rwanda. This tiny Central African country was elected as a rotating non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1994, the very year the horrific genocide took place in that country. (Which goes to show how ineffectual non-permanent membership in the Security Council is.) The Security Council did little to prevent the genocide that ravaged the country and left about a million people dead. The P-5 looked the other way while Rwandans were being massacred. And Rwanda, the non-permanent UN Security Council member, sat back and watched the genocide unfold before the world’s eyes.

Another glaring example is the Iraq war. In March 2003, the United States and Britain invaded Iraq—without unanimous UN Security Council approval—on the pretext that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction” and had links to the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. (Both claims were found to be untrue.) The UN Security Council could do absolutely nothing to prevent the invasion of Iraq; it could not even impose sanctions on the United States and Britain, which, as veto-holding members of the UN Security Council, had imposed UN sanctions on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Although the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had publicly expressed his disappointment about the decision by the US and Britain to go to war with Iraq, and had even declared that the war was “illegal”—as it had not been sanctioned by the UN Security Council and violated the UN Charter—there was not much he could do. The war went ahead despite widespread anti-war protests on every continent around the globe. (Similar protests in Western capitals and in the Arab world have failed to convince both Biden and Netanyahu to stop the war against the Gazan people.) The George W. Bush and Tony Blair administrations did not listen to the voices of the millions of people who were opposed to the war, even as the death toll in Iraq reached alarming proportions.

How wars benefit the P-5 and the UN  

The fact is that the UN Security Council’s permanent veto-holding permanent members have never really been committed to world peace because wars keep their military industrial complexes going.  It is not lost on many people around the world that the permanent members of the UN Security Council also happen to be the biggest arms manufacturers in the world. The United States remains the biggest arms exporter in the world, followed by Russia, France and China, with Britain not very far behind. These countries have a vested interest in conflicts and in selling arms to non-arms manufacturing countries in Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world. They have no moral authority to preach peace to the world when they themselves benefit financially and geopolitically from war.

When wars occur in far-off places, arms manufacturers in these countries have a field day. Wars in former French colonies in Africa keep France’s military industrial complex well-oiled. Wars in the Middle East are viewed by British and American arms manufacturers as a boon for their arms industries. If there were no wars or civil conflicts in the world, these industries would have fewer or no customers.

The United States remains the biggest arms exporter in the world, followed by Russia, France and China, with Britain not very far behind.

Wars and other disasters also provide the UN an opportunity to fundraise for refugees and internally displaced people. The UN’s campaign in Yemen, for example, is not about ending the Saudi-led war against the Houthis, but about raising donations for the millions who are suffering as a result of the crisis. The UN, including the UN Secretary-General, views Yemen as a humanitarian crisis, not a political crisis. (Biden’s offer of assistance to Gaza also ignores the political dimension of the humanitarian crisis.) No sanctions have been imposed on Saudi Arabia for going to war in Yemen because Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of the US and a big importer of US-made weapons. Any resolution to sanction Saudi Arabia would no doubt be vetoed by the US. And because humanitarian crises fill up UN agencies’ coffers, UN humanitarian agencies are less focused on ending the political crisis—which would inevitably end the humanitarian crisis.

Reforming the UN Security Council 

The crisis in Gaza has underscored the need for the UN Security Council to be more democratic and inclusive. While giving just five nations permanent seats and veto-holding powers at the Security Council might have made sense when the UN was founded, in a world where most of the world’s population is concentrated in Asia and Africa, and where new regional powers are emerging, it is time to expand the Council, and include in it countries that are seriously committed to peace and stability rather than to wars and conflicts.

The UN Security Council, as currently constituted, mainly represents the interests of the winners of the Second World War, even though the world has changed considerably since then in terms of geopolitics, demographics, and economic influence. Emerging economies such as India (the second most populous country in the world after China), Brazil, and Nigeria (both regional powerhouses) not only hold sizeable populations, they are also becoming important economically. Some of these countries even have nuclear capability. They and others should have a say in UN Security Council decisions. Moreover, today’s most deadly wars are being waged by insurgents or terrorist groups, which have become transnational. So, new forms of international cooperation are required.

Countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (regions that hold the majority of the world’s population) must demand to be included as permanent members of the Security Council. Most UN Security Council resolutions have to do with conflicts in Africa, yet African countries have little or no say in the passing of these resolutions, whether they be about imposing sanctions on a country, sending in peacekeepers to conflict zones or deciding whether or not a country should be invaded.

Most importantly, membership should be allocated to those countries that have no vested interest in the arms industry and which have not waged war on other countries since the Security Council was established in 1945—countries that are genuinely committed to world peace. And in order to eliminate the threat of nuclear war, absence of nuclear capability should be a condition for permanent membership.

However, if reforming the UN Security is not possible (because the P-5 will veto such a decision), then perhaps it is time to disband the Council altogether. There is no point in pretending anymore that there is a body in the UN that actually cares about preventing wars and human rights violations and has the clout and the will to do so.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has shown, once again, that the UN Security Council is ineffective when it comes to protecting the human rights of all people and preventing wars. Wars will continue as long as they serve the economic or geopolitical interests of the five permanent members of the UN, especially the United States.

There is no point in pretending anymore that there is a body in the UN that actually cares about preventing wars and human rights violations and has the clout and the will to do so.

The tragedy is that this war could fuel a wider war in the Middle East and beyond that might be hard to contain once it is unleashed. If that happens, the US must be held accountable for aiding and abetting an unjustified war that led to escalation of conflict in the region and resulted in colossal casualties and human rights violations.

As the two East African countries heighten competition against each other in providing transshipment logistics for the region’s landlocked countries, how the one-year-old Kenya Kwanza government employs its diplomatic tact to navigate a costly non-tariff barrier erected by Tanzania to deny Mombasa Port transit business will put Kenya in the spotlight.

Although the two countries can be applauded for tackling a significant number of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) between them since President Samia Suluhu came to power – more than any previous administration – Tanzania has scored poorly on a single – sinister – NTB; the country has consistently failed to create a geofence on a 15-kilometre stretch of road past the Taveta-Holili One-Stop Border Post that would allow Kenya to use the new Voi-Taveta-Singida-Kobero link road to serve Burundi, Rwanda and some parts of Tanzania instead of the longer Central Corridor Road that connects them to the port of Dar es Salaam.

For a road section to be considered geofenced, it is supposed to have inspection points and cargo passing through it can be tracked electronically for taxation and avoidance of dumping of goods in a country. Geofencing also guards against cargo theft or loss while in transit.

The East African region has embraced this concept for a number of years now. The Northern Corridor route from Mombasa Port to Malaba and onward to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has been fully geofenced and the movement of cargo is monitored through a Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (ECTS) system operated by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). Any slight movement of the goods outside the geofence sends a red alert for immediate action.

The absence of geofencing on that section of the Voi-Taveta-Singida-Kobero road has worked against Rwanda and Burundi, in particular, as they now use the much longer route to import through the port of Dar es Salaam.

To use the Taveta route, which was tarmacked in 2018, importers are forced to use the traditional bonds system that has been abandoned by the region, a tedious manual process that causes costly delays that surpass any benefit that would accrue from using the shortened distance.

Bilateral trade between Kenya and Tanzania was expected to get a major boost when the road was constructed and a One Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Taveta and Holili, hosting government agencies on either side of the border, was opened.

In Kenya, the new road deviates from the Northern Corridor at Voi town, making it the most important link between Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, especially for imports and exports. It was estimated that the OSBP would reduce transit time at the two border posts by 30 per cent.

“It’s a demonstration of the trust between the two countries and that the One People, One Destiny dream is slowly being realised through various East Africa Community initiatives,” Tanzania Authorities put it during the OSBP launch.

The Kenyan section of the Holili-Taveta-Mwatate Road is 135 km long. The section between Voi and Mwatate was not under the project since it was in good condition.

Up to 2003, at least 60 per cent of the cargo destined for Rwanda and Burundi passed through Mombasa and the Northern Corridor before traders began to shun the Kenyan facilities citing congestion at the port and insecurity and corruption on the roads, which Kenya comprehensively addressed in 2007 when it introduced Container Freight Stations (CFSs) that gave the port breathing space to tackle its perennial congestion problem by expanding port facilities.

According to Justus Nyarandi, the Executive Secretary of the Northern Corridor Transit Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA) headquartered in Mombasa, there is a great need to agree to geofence the Taveta Road section, which would allow the use of the single customs facility that allows some goods to be cleared and taxed at the points of entry.

Up to 2003, at least 60 per cent of the cargo destined for Rwanda and Burundi passed through Mombasa and the Northern Corridor.

NCTTCA has already presented this geofencing case to the East African Community Council of Ministers and is now roping in the Commissioners of Customs to compel Tanzania to geofence so that transporters can use Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking Seals (RECTS) instead of the tedious bond application and cancellation processes.

The NCTTCA’s annual Northern Corridor Transport Observatory Report for 2022 indicates that the port of Mombasa handled only 977 tonnes of cargo destined for Burundi, constituting 0.1 per cent of the transit market, and 181,286 tonnes of cargo for Rwanda, representing 4.2 per cent of the market. At over 75 per cent and 12 per cent for Uganda and South Sudan, respectively, these two countries are the biggest transit markets for Mombasa Port.

“The volume of the Burundi cargo passing through the port of Mombasa is too low. If the geofencing is implemented, the volume would go up to 30–40 per cent,” Nyarandi said, adding that by using the port of Mombasa, Rwanda and Burundi would cut the transit distance by between 300 and 400 kilometres, translating to a significant drop in the cost of fuel and reducing the cost of transport, the crossing of two border points notwithstanding.

The new route was expected to open up fresh competition between Kenya and Tanzania, especially for transit cargo. For over a decade now, the two countries have strived to outsmart each other to become the preferred hub for the East African regional transit market. Rwanda and Burundi prefer to use Dar es Salaam Port while South Sudan prefers Mombasa Port.

Due to the emerging strength of the port of Dar es Salaam in recent years, the Kenyan government has initiated a number of reforms to cement its position as the gateway to East and Central Africa. For instance, it has now increased the free storage days before the return of empty containers to the shipping lines from 9 to 15 days.

The Intergovernmental Steering Committee on Ease of Doing Business through the Port Reforms Working Group High-Level Consultative Forum recently made a raft of recommendations that, once fully implemented, will make the Northern Corridor more competitive.

The conveners of the forum were led by the Head of State, President William Ruto, the Council of Governors Chairperson Ann Waiguru, the Cabinet Secretary in charge of the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry Moses Kuria, Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, and Salim Mvurya, Cabinet Secretary in charge of Mining, Blue Economy, and Maritime Affairs.

In a report released in July 2023, the forum tasked all the Partner Government Agencies (PGA) involved in cargo clearance and the private sector to embrace round-the-clock work including weekends to ensure faster clearance of goods and improve cargo dwell time and ship turnaround.

The county governments through which the corridor traverses were asked to stop levying cess or any fees on transit trucks to facilitate international trade and improve the competitiveness of the Northern Corridor.

The report noted that there is a need to review and harmonise the charges levied by various shipping lines and to regulate the arbitrary charges introduced by other cargo interveners that have made Mombasa Port more expensive by up to US$500 per container, the report noted.

“Shipping lines operating in Mombasa Port grant 9 days free period for the return of the empty containers for local imports, 30 days for Uganda, and 15 days for Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan cargo. The ports of Dar es Salaam, Durban, and Egypt grant more days. This makes the port of Mombasa non-competitive and discourages customers from using the facility since they incur demurrage charges due to the shorter free period by shipping lines taking into account the transit distance for DRC and South Sudan,” the report said.

Dar es Salaam Port does not charge shippers Terminal Handling Charges and Lift-on/Lift-off (LoLo) while Mombasa Port charges US$99 and US$148 for a 20ft and a 40ft container, respectively, for the former, and US$30 and US$40 for a 20ft and a 40ft container, respectively, for the latter.

Other unique charges levied by the shipping lines in Mombasa Port include Container Cleaning Charges, Container Management Fees, Logistics Management Fees and Equipment Management Fees.

KRA was also asked to acquire additional drive-through scanners. This will minimise scanning delays and result in efficient cargo offtake at the port of Mombasa, with the task force recommending fast-tracking of the Customs Agents and Freight Forwarders’ Bill that has been developed by the Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA) to professionalise the sector.

Compared to Mombasa Port, Dar es Salaam Port is rapidly closing existing infrastructural gaps and it has gone up in World Bank rankings. Kenya now ranks below both the port of Dar Salaam and Port Berbera in Somaliland.

Of a total of 348 ports surveyed in 2022, the World Bank’s annual Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) ranked Mombasa – the largest port in East Africa – at position 326; Dar es Salaam, its main regional competitor, was ranked at 312.

This compares poorly with the 2021 CPPI report that ranked the port of Mombasa at 296 and Dar es Salaam Port at 316. In the 2022 CPPI report, Kenya also compares poorly with both Djibouti Port and Port Berbera – the two biggest competitors for Lamu Port – which were ranked at 26 and 144, respectively.

Dar Port ranking has been boosted by new infrastructure projects; Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) projects currently at different stages of implementation include the expansion and modernisation of the Indian Ocean ports of Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara, as well as the lake ports of Mwanza and Kigoma.

Dar es Salaam port is rapidly closing existing infrastructural gaps and it has gone up in World Bank rankings.

Other projects in the pipeline include the establishment of Kwala Dry Port, the construction of a Standard Gauge Railway, paving trunk roads and overhauling the operations of the Tanzania-Zambia Railways Authority (Tazara).

The expansion and modernisation of the port under the Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project (DMGP) includes strengthening and deepening of berths 1 to 7 and the Roll-on/Roll-off terminal (berth 0) at Gerezani Creek; dredging of the entrance channel, turning circle and harbour basin; strengthening and deepening berths 8–11. The Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal, which has a capacity of 600,000 vehicles annually, has already been completed. Last year, the new 320-meter berth broke both its own handling capacity record and those of all other Eastern and Southern African ports – except South Africa – by accommodating the cargo ship MOL Tranquil Ace to discharge 3,743 cars.

Dar es Salaam Port is contributing US$357 million to the DMGP, a World Bank project financed through an International Development Association Scale-up Facility credit. The project, which was initiated in 2017 and will be finalised 2024, will support the financing of crucial investments in the Port of Dar es Salaam with the aim of improving its effectiveness and efficiency for the benefit of public and private stakeholders.

The DMGP will increase Dar es Salaam Port’s capacity from the current 15 million metric tonnes annually to 28 million tonnes.

For the port of Mombasa to remain competitive, maritime experts propose that the government cede its development to the private sector. It took about ten years to construct three berths at Lamu Port with Kenya government funding, a luxury the port of Mombasa may not enjoy owing to the growth in cargo volumes, which almost surpassed 34 million metric tonnes of total throughput last year. Studies show that the port will surpass its maximum capacity by 2028.

Privatising the port would require political goodwill. Efforts to have the port operations privatised have always faced resistance from the region’s politicians and the giant Dock Workers Union (DWU) that has successfully prosecuted the matter in the courts. Privatisation has been wrongly perceived as a strategy to cut down the workforce.

With the lack of capacity at the state-run KPA, Dubai Port World (DP World) has already expressed interest in managing Lamu Port. It has also expressed interest in running other Kenyan ports. Located in Dubai, DP World UAE is at the heart of DP World. It is home to the flagship Jebel Ali Port, the premier maritime commercial gateway and hub to a region of more than 3.5 billion people. It has a huge portfolio managing many ports globally, including in Africa.

For the port of Mombasa to remain competitive, maritime experts propose that the government cede its development to the private sector.

This year, President William Ruto’s administration said Kenya will lease the operations and management of five critical ports through an ambitious KSh1.4 trillion public-private partnership (PPP) aimed at revitalising the country’s maritime industry.

Efforts to increase the port infrastructure at the port of Mombasa have in the past maintained a good pace, however. KPA has completed the construction of Phase 2 of the Second Container Terminal (CT2) and brought on board an additional capacity of 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The new facility increased the Mombasa port capacity to 2.1 million TEUs. It acquired modern cargo handling equipment this year, which has enhanced its capacity to go into the transshipment business should the KRA reduce the customs procedures that have caused shipping lines to shy away from using Kenya’s ports.

KPA recently commissioned the Kipevu Oil Terminal (KOT) which will have four berths capable of handling the import and export of five different hydrocarbon products including crude oil, heavy fuel oil, LPG and three types of white oil products. The KSh40 billion KOT facility will enable Kenya to double its capacity to handle transit products related to energy and petroleum.

The construction of the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Mombasa Port to Naivasha has already been completed. Kenya has also constructed the Inland Container Depot in Naivasha that is serving its Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) transit markets. It has also rehabilitated the MGR line to Malaba, where an ICD is to be constructed.

Last year, the KRA launched the Integrated Customs Management System (iCMS) which has reduced the paperwork cargo clearance period from 24 hours to under 10 minutes. The system was also integrated into the National Open Electrical Single Window System, which is operated by KenTrade, and has fully automated the cargo clearance processes.

As Mombasa Port moves towards maximum utilisation, there is a great need to also focus on Lamu as an alternative port and how it can be connected to the existing corridors by seeking private partnerships. The enthusiasm with which the government has rolled out infrastructure development at Mombasa Port should be replicated in Lamu Port.

Tanzanian has proposed to construct the biggest port in the region at Bagamoyo. President Samia Suluhu last year hinted that she would revive the construction of the Bagamoyo port project that was initiated by the former Tanzanian head of state Jakaya Kikwete, who is now an advisor to the current president. The project was blocked by the late President John Magufuli when he took power. If it intends to remain the regional transshipment hub, Kenya needs to keep its own eyes wide open, considering that other competing ports – Djibouti and Berbera – are rapidly expanding.