East Africa's Port Crisis: How Tariff Hikes and Neglect Are Strangling Regional Trade
A perfect storm of rising tariffs, infrastructure decay, and forced cargo policies is crippling East African ports, threatening to choke regional commerce and drive up costs for millions of consumers across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
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The cargo sits. Containers stack higher at Mombasa while trucks idle at Port Bell's crumbling docks. Across East Africa, the arteries of regional trade are hardening—not from success, but from a convergence of policy missteps, infrastructure neglect, and escalating costs that threaten to strangle commerce across one of Africa's most economically integrated regions.
Tanzania has become the latest country to tighten the financial vice on traders, with the Tanzania Ports Authority announcing tariff increases of between 2 and 15 percent on port services. The move follows Kenya's own recent tariff adjustments, creating a dual squeeze on businesses that depend on East African coastal infrastructure to move goods inland. For traders already navigating razor-thin margins, these increases represent more than administrative adjustments—they signal a fundamental shift in the cost structure of doing business across the region.
The Compounding Cost of Inefficiency
The tariff increases come against a backdrop of deteriorating port efficiency. Kenya has revived its controversial policy of forcing cargo onto rail transport to ease congestion at Mombasa port, a decision that has reignited longstanding tensions over cargo handling procedures. The policy, intended to decongest the port and promote rail usage, instead adds layers of complexity to supply chains already strained by capacity constraints and procedural bottlenecks.
According to reporting by The East African, Kenya's push to mandate rail transfers has sparked renewed debate over port management strategies, with critics arguing that forced cargo movements create artificial inefficiencies rather than addressing underlying infrastructure deficits. The policy effectively transforms what should be a logistics optimization into a regulatory burden, adding time and uncertainty to cargo movements at precisely the moment when regional trade requires greater fluidity.
The situation reflects a broader pattern across East African port infrastructure: attempts to manage congestion through policy rather than investment. Rather than expanding capacity or improving cargo handling systems, governments are implementing measures that redistribute inefficiency rather than eliminate it. The result is a logistics environment where predictability—the foundation of efficient trade—becomes increasingly elusive.
Uganda's Inland Port Catastrophe
Nowhere is the infrastructure crisis more visible than at Uganda's Port Bell, one of the country's oldest port facilities along the shores of Lake Victoria. The facility, which should serve as a vital inland trade hub connecting Uganda to regional markets, has instead become a symbol of administrative failure and physical decay. Encroachment and neglect have rendered the port increasingly dysfunctional, limiting Uganda's ability to leverage lake transport as an alternative to congested road networks.
The deterioration of Port Bell carries particular significance for landlocked Uganda, which depends on efficient transit corridors to access international markets. As The East African documented, the port's decline stems from years of inadequate maintenance and failure to protect port land from encroachment by other developments. What was once strategic national infrastructure has been allowed to degrade into marginal utility, forcing more cargo onto already strained road networks and increasing transportation costs throughout the country.
The Port Bell situation illustrates a critical weakness in East African infrastructure planning: the tendency to focus on new developments while allowing existing assets to deteriorate. Rather than maintaining and upgrading functional facilities, governments pursue headline-grabbing new projects, leaving vital connective infrastructure to decay. The pattern repeats across the region, from port facilities to urban transport networks.
The Ripple Effect Through Regional Supply Chains
These port challenges do not exist in isolation. They intersect with broader urban congestion problems that further complicate cargo movement. East African cities from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam are experiencing gridlock that costs billions in lost productivity, according to recent analyses. The congestion extends the final-mile delivery challenge, meaning that even cargo that successfully navigates port procedures faces additional delays in urban distribution.
The combined effect of port tariff increases, forced cargo policies, infrastructure neglect, and urban congestion creates a compounding cost structure that flows through to consumers. Each inefficiency adds time and expense to supply chains, ultimately manifesting as higher prices for goods across the region. For economies where household budgets are already stretched, these incremental costs accumulate into significant economic pressure.
The timing proves particularly problematic. East Africa has spent two decades building economic integration through initiatives like the East African Community common market. Yet just as trade barriers fall, physical infrastructure constraints and policy complications threaten to undermine the gains from integration. The promise of seamless regional commerce confronts the reality of ports that cannot efficiently handle existing volumes, let alone anticipated growth.
Policy Choices and Infrastructure Futures
The current crisis stems fundamentally from policy choices—decisions to raise tariffs rather than improve efficiency, to force cargo movements rather than expand capacity, to allow encroachment rather than protect strategic assets. These choices reflect immediate fiscal pressures and political calculations, but they mortgage long-term economic competitiveness for short-term administrative convenience.
What East Africa requires is not incremental policy adjustments but systematic infrastructure investment coupled with genuine institutional reform. Ports need capacity expansion, not just tariff optimization. Cargo handling requires technological modernization, not forced modal shifts. Existing facilities demand maintenance and protection, not neglect and encroachment. The solutions are neither mysterious nor particularly innovative—they simply require sustained commitment and adequate funding.
The question facing East African governments is whether they will treat port infrastructure as genuine economic enablers or as revenue extraction points. The Tanzania Ports Authority's tariff increases and Kenya's forced cargo policies suggest a continued emphasis on managing existing constraints rather than eliminating them. Until that calculation shifts, regional trade will continue navigating an increasingly expensive and unpredictable logistics environment.
For the trader watching containers stack at Mombasa or waiting for clearance at Port Bell, the policy debates matter less than the practical reality: moving goods across East Africa is becoming harder and more expensive. That reality, more than any tariff schedule or cargo policy, will ultimately determine whether the region's economic integration delivers on its promise or founders on the docks of neglected ports.