More than 1,600 Uganda-bound containers of goods are stuck at the Mombasa port, Port Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has said. If these goods are not claimed, traders are bound to incur extra costs in form of demurrage or lose them through auction.

In an interview, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) commissioner customs department Richard Kamajugo said: “This is becoming a constant habit for traders not to collect their goods/cargo and they later complain when they are auctioned.”

Because of that, he said URA has been issuing notices to the traders since March to clear their goods from the port in order to avoid demurrage.

“We have so far issued over five notices since March this year in the media to remind the traders. We would have gone ahead to classify and give details of the owners but because of the expenses, we can’t afford”, Mr Kamajugo said.

The URA notice to the traders shows that as of August 4, there were a total of 1,616 Uganda bound containers. Of these, 756 are 20-feet containers while 857 are 40 feet-containers and all have stayed at the Mombasa Port between the periods of 0-90 days.

The notice further indicates that 1,332 containers have spent between 0-30 days, 57 containers between 31-60 days, 23 containers between 61-90 days while 204 containers have been at the port for more than 90 days.

READ: Regional cargo through Mombasa port up 120pc

KPA gives nine days for all cargo to be cleared from the port. Initially, the authority used to give 45 day; this was subsequently reduced to 15 days until the period was cut down to the current nine days. According to the authority, when nine days elapse, one would be required to pay $145 (shs381, 350) for every 40-feet container for the first day.

The fee is cumulative and at the end of a month, a trader will be expected to pay $3,000 if the cargo is still not cleared. Delays have been blamed on traders’ lack of information on how to clear their cargo.

Traders react

Kampala City Traders Association Publicist Issa Sekitto told the Daily Monitor that they are aware of the situation and have deployed an official at Mombasa who is following up the matter.

He however said: “It makes no sense to clear goods which have overstayed since most of them could have gone bad or expired. We request URA to clear the goods and we pay up the taxes in Uganda after checking whether they are still in good condition.”

However Mr Kamajugo countered that traders should always plan ahead before they go into importing the goods.

In a previous interview at the commissioning of the Mombasa Ports Charter last month, the Ugandan business community in Mombasa representative Mr John William Lusabya said:

“Over 90 per cent of cargo auctioned at the Port of Mombasa because of delays belongs to Ugandans.”

READ: Uganda cargo at Mombasa port increases 14.4 per cent

He added that a majority of traders tend to use brokers, who lack expertise on clearing and instead of guiding them to pay clearing money before the ship docks, they do it after and that is how they accumulate days.

URA announced this week that it had began implementing the Single Customs Union (SCU) to clear global cargo as a way of improving efficiency and freer circulation od goods. The pilot project began in April and will involve overseas cargo bound for Uganda through the port of Mombasa.

The project will last for about three weeks before all international containerised cargo is brought on board SCU.

READ: Ugandan taxman starts clearing global cargo through Single Customs System

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