Director of the Port of Tema, Mr. Jacob Adorkor has indicated that the Tema port is currently performing efficiently and is on track to achieving its target of 800,000 tonnage of container traffic for the year 2016.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Adorkor told M&TD in an interview that the Tema Port was on track to achieving the projected throughput of about 800,000 tonnes of container traffic at the Tema port. Aside achieving in target of container traffic, the port director indicated that other issues that were seen as challenges at the port have been dealt with in order to make the port very efficient.
“Tema port is currently performing efficiently because, the congestion we saw in the port in those days have all been reduced to the barest minimum. The challenges we have about clearing of goods, the challenges we had about people entering the Port and coming out at any time, all have been reduced. Now we have reduced movement into the port by introducing a lot of technology. We have also reduced damages to cargo, reduced pilfering of cargo in port and we are moving forward” he noted.
2016 Container Traffic
According to Mr. Adorkor, in an election year, container traffic mostly depends on shippers and investors. If they don’t hold back, waiting to see the results, container traffic may hit its target and over.
“If the trends had continued we would have said we will hit the 2013 figures and more but we are in an election year. People could hold back, investors could hold back and see what will be the results before they start investments. But I will not say that we are going to increase traffic, because increasing traffic depends on shippers, the resonse of shippers and investors, so I will not stand here and say there will be increment of traffic, but the target we set for ourselves that is 800,000 TEU’s we hope we will achieve it.
For the first quarter of 2016, the Tema port did over 250,000 TEU’s which means that when the trend continues, they could hit their target of 800,000 TEU’s and over.
Container traffic performance in 2015
Some reports suggests that container traffic at the Tema Port in 2015 reduced which was a bad sign of the port’s performance but port director, Mr. Adorkor explained otherwise.
“We had our highest container throughput in 2013, where we went above 800,000 TEU’s. we were expecting that in 2014 we will go to 1 million TEU’s but unfortunately there were challenges in the economy, there were issues about the dollar, foreign exchange problems came in February 2014, then electricity challenges also came up and that affected our throughput for 2014, but in 2015, the figures picked up again on top of the 2014 figures. We dropped to 750,000 TEU’s in 2014, but we picked up just above 800,000 TEU’s. So to say that we dropped in 2015 is simplifying the issue. If you compare 2015 to 2013, yes the figures dropped but it picked up over the 2014 figures”
