| Grain Silo |
The ministry’s intervention followed revelation by DSM
Corridor Group (DCG) that the said terminal with the capacity to handle 30,000
tonnes is idle and efforts to make it operational have failed.
The Minister for Transport, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, told the DCG to forward its proposals on how to make the facility operational before taking to task the Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) on the matter.
“Why have you (TPA) been sitting on the proposals for all
these years?” Dr Mwakyembe asked the TPA during the European Union (EU) envoys’
tour of the port. The Minister said so far three companies have shown interest
to operate the terminal.
He directed DCG to re-forward the proposal to the
ministry for further scrutiny before deciding the right firm to run the facility.
The TPA acting Deputy Director General, Mr Clemence
Kiloyavaha, said the port was trying to figure out the best way of running the
facility by looking at different options including public private partnership
(PPP).
“We are looking at the best option to run the grain terminal. But we have not reached the conclusive solution,” said Mr
Kiloyavaha, who was representing the TPA acting DG during the diplomats’ tour.
The DCG Chief Executive Officer, Mr Erik Kok, said they have been writing to
TPA every year in the past five years without getting any meaningful response
from the institution.
“There is an excellent opportunity to run the facility under
PPP, although efforts to get TPA response failed despite the fact that the
facility had been idle for the last five years,” Mr Kok told the minister. He
added: “There is some revenue out of that outfit.” Last time the firm wrote the
TPA was in this April.
The Finnish-Dutch owned stevedoring company, is currently
operating a fertilizer warehouse adjacent to the TPA grain terminal that has
the capacity to store 19,000 tonnes.
Three firms, Mohammed Enterprises,
Bakhresa Group of Companies and DSM Corridor, have forwarded their proposal to
TPA for running of the facility.
DSM Corridor operates a special fertiliser handling terminal
adjacent to the Dar Port, which is unique in whole Sub-Saharan Africa.
The new
fertiliser terminal put Dar on the map as a first class fertilizer discharge
port. The Group’ private investment serves the entire agro-industry by
improving fertilizer handling efficiency, thus decreasing costs of fertilizer.
Source: The Daily News,http://www.dailynews.co.tz , reported by Abduel Elinaza in Dar es Salaam
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