The planned expansion of Tanzania’s Port of Dar es Salaam has been thrown into jeopardy by a Chinese company that is seeking to block the Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) from awarding the contract for the project.
China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) has filed an appli-cation at the High Court seeking to stop the TPA from inviting bids for the engineer-ing, procurement and construc-tion of two new berths at the port at an estimated cost of $400-million.
The Chinese company, which undertook a feasibility study into the proposed berths Number 13 and Number 14, is opposing the award of the contract to another company on the basis that it signed a memorandum of under-standing (MoU) with the TPA giving it the exclusive right to undertake the project.
In the application, CCCC contends that one of the agreements contained in the MoU is that the company was to be the sole agent to design, supervise and construct all aspects of the project on the completion of the study and following approval by relevant authorities.
“It was agreed . . . that the study was not to be offered to any other person for any purposes whatsoever and it would not be used by any third party,” says CCCC in its affidavit.
It adds that the study covered the technical details of the project, as well as the financial requirements and legal frame-work within which the project was to be implemented.
The move by the Chinese company could cause further delays to the project, which is already behind schedule, amid a worsening challenge of congestion at the port.
Expansion of the port will involve dredging to accom-modate larger vessels, the building of two new berths adjacent to the Kurasini oil jetty and turning the single- point mooring into a multipur-pose facility.
The project, which will also involve the building of a container yard at the two terminals, with capacity to handle 15 000 t of cargo, was initially scheduled to start in 2011, with completion slated for the end of this year.
Once the project has been completed, the Port of Dar es Salaam will have the capacity to handle over 1.2-million 20-feet equivalent units (TEUs) a year, while tankers carrying 45 000 m/t to 80 000 m/t will be able to berth. Currently, the port handles 460 000 TEUs a year.
This will also enable the port to serve new markets, such as South Sudan, and neighbouring landlocked countries, including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.