The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) is part of a broader effort by the Port Management Association for Eastern and Southern Africa (PMAESA) to encourage cooperation and integration between its 19 member states. The goals of these MoUs are to share technical skills and expertise, explore partnership opportunities, and facilitate infrastructure development and capacity building. They are expected to ease trade by creating economic corridors between African countries and increase competitiveness. TNPA plans to sign similar MoUs with Angola, Tanzania, and Sudan to replicate these benefits across the region. The long-term targets set by PMAESA and the African Union are

1. Q: Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA)
have signed a memorandum of understanding to implement the Regional Maritime
Cooperation. How does the MoU help in the Maritime Integration in the region?
VK: The MoUs are driven by the PortManagement Association for Eastern and
Southern Africa (PMAESA). We have 19 member states at PMAESA. One of the
driving forces of PMAESA is to encourage the member states to enter the MoUs.
TNPA as a member state, is part of Transnet whose MDS (Market Demand
Strategy ) is to integrate economic activities in the maritime sectorin the
continent. The gains, in terms of economic growth in Africa, will be facilitating
inter regional trade and creating corridors that will ease trade between countries in
Africa.
Q: So these MoUs, you have signed one with Kenya, you signed one with Maputo
Namibia and you have also extended one to the west of the continent in Ghana,
who else are you looking forward to signing with next. What exactly do they
entail and who brings what to the table?
VK: That is a very interesting question. We will soonbe signing with Angola,
Tanzania and Sudan.
The gist of the MoU is to ensure that there is an exchange of technical skills,
sharing of maritime experiences, study of opportunities of partnerships, port
infrastructure development, capacity building and transfere of skills and
exchanging of technical expertise. We also have an understanding with Maputo
where we have extended the arrangement into an agreement whereby they will
utilize our dredging vessel within the port of Maputo.
Q: So have you started seeing any benefits in place with the MoUs you have, for
example the movement of goods between South African ports and Maputo are we
finding it a lot quicker in terms of goods movement and is it going to increase
Africa’s competitiveness.
VK: Definitely it will. With Maputo for instance we have had a technical team
come down to South Africa experiencing some of the issues we contend with in

2. terms of dredging and deepening of the berths. Thoseare the benefits that we
exchange with the portof Maputo.
We also had a team from the South African port system visiting Maputo sharing
those experiences. There was an immediate gain. The dredger that TNPA recently
purchased will be contracted to Maputo through the agreement we entered into
which will be a revenue generating exercise and that will also be an instant gain.
Q: What about the complaints we always hear about ports in terms of how
expensive these tariffs are.
Are you going to be looking at reducing them and harmonizing them between the
African regions?
VK: it is quite interesting that you are talking about the ports in Africa being
expensive to do business with. It depends from which angle you are looking at. But
however in general, the African continent has challenges in terms of the port
development infrastructure, with the berths having to be deepened. Obviously that
presents challenges of bigger vessels coming to dockat the ports. The work that we
are doing now is to eliminating that because it results into some of the vessels
having to wait longer and that costs more.
But there is a process in place through the MoUs by sharing of experiences and
best practices to address those issues.
Q: Tell us about these processes in place. Are they going to be implemented with
the MoUs say such as the one you have just signed with Kenya or are they just
going to be replicated across board?
VK: It’s going to be replicated.
I will give you a good example of what is currently taking place in Namport which
is one of the PMAESA member state just like Kenya recently sent its employees
and managers to come and look at the best practices in terms of how to harness the
employee programmes to ensure that we are effective in terms of port operations
and in terms of the turnaround time for the vessels to come into the port.

3. The model which South Africa is currently using which is working has been
transplanted into Namibia. Currently Kenya Ports Authority is both the landlord
port authority and an operator and there is keenness on part of Kenyans to learn
from South African port system on how to divisionalize its services and create a
landlord port authority and a Port Operator.
That process they are looking at will help them with the tendering process in order
to identify a port operator in one of the ports in Kenya.
Q: So how far are we with the strategy?
You mentioned a few countries that you are still going to sign an MoU with but I
think what we are still trying to understand is that when we come into intra-African
trade we want to obviously bump them up, we are still seating on a 12 % what is
the target?
VK: The target is eventually through PMAESA. This is because the drive behind
these MOUs is a PMAESA driven strategy. Coupled with that there is a stronger
strategy coming from Transnet’s MDS strategy focusing on growth especially in
the continent.
The PMAESA drive is bolstered with African Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIMS
2050) spearheaded by the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa. The whole idea is
to ensure that the continent is competitive.
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