East Africa's leading sea ports have been fighting congestion, but the Port of Dar- es- Salaam seems to have come out worse off after Mombasa was able to get a way forward.

Transporting cargo through the Port of Dar- es- Salaam is 2,000 dollars more expensive than doing so through Mombasa.

The revelation follows shipping lines' imposition of a vessel delay surcharge due to delays in clearing ships, which averages at a 20 days waiting period.

As if this is not enough, leading lines such as Maersk, MSC and PIL, have decided to cut down the number of callings at the port of Dar -es- Salaam.

For Mombasa, the use of two container freight stations, Consolbase and Mombasa Container Terminal, seems to be a temporary solution as cargo continues to grow at more speed than anticipated.

Dar- es- Salaam has been handling 30 per cent more traffic over its designed throughput, with experts pointing out that the recent political unrest in Kenya worsened the situation.

Since late 2007, many operators calling at the Port of Dar- es- Salaam have had a vessel delay surcharge of USD 200 per TEU.

The main shipping lines could not take it any more with MSC, for instance, announcing scaling back its monthly calls at the port from 12 to just five.

While PIL has removed the port from its weekly Asia/East Africa/India Ocean link. In its place, PIL has started a Singapore/Dar- es- Salaam shuttle with two 1,100 TEU class ships.

By the end of February, more than 11,000 containers had built up at the Tanzania International Container Terminal Service (TICTS) facility and the port was effectively congested.

This has prompted Tanzania's Surface and Marine Transport Authority (SMTA) - the industry regulator - to act.

Meetings between SMTA, TICTS and the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) led of the establishment of a special congestion committee.

The move has led to the transfer of several thousands of boxes to inland container depots (ICDs), including some on the island of Zanzibar.

The move, however, is yet to help resolve the congestion headache, which the Port of Mombasa is also trying to resolve.

Currently, the only Mombasa port container terminal which is designed to handle 250,000 TEU a year is handling close to 600,0000 TEU.

The increase in the port's box throughput reflects growth in local import/export volumes, a solid gain in transit cargo, particularly to and from Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.

Last year, the port surpassed the half a million TEU milestone for the first time in its history as its container traffic surged more than 22 per cent to 585,367 TEU.

In tonnage terms, transit cargo of 4.4 million tonnes and transshipment volumes of 426,436 tonnes were up 16 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively, on the 2006 figures.

Experts say Mombasa port could record a surge in throughput, but warn that such a solid performance could come with a bigger price to be paid - increased port congestion.

KPA had announced the suspension of all cargo transshipments in an attempt to help free up space at the port.

A long term solution that involves expansion and modernising of cargo handling facilities is in the pipe line.