The cleanup at the Kenya Ports Authority is long overdue (see page 25). All the smuggling, drug dealing and tax evasion would not continue at present levels if the KPA were run more efficiently.
In a tax evasion probe, the Kenya Revenue Authority has suspended 21 freight and transport companies operating at the Mombasa port.
The port has vast potential, especially now that the age-old problem of congestion because of limited handling and storage capacities is being tackled. The Sh28 billion second container terminal will increase capacity exponentially.
It is projected to handle 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), rising to 1.2 million TEUs by 2019.
Landlocked Uganda, Rwanda and DRC use the port and will increasingly do so the more capacity and efficiency it offers.
Anti-corruption will be a key component of making the Mombasa port handle much higher volumes of transshipment cargo from the region, meaning more revenues and more jobs for Kenyans.
The ongoing cleanup exercise must not relent.
