He urged administrative heads both at TPA and in the region, as well as specifically in Kyela District, to consult their counterparts in neighbouring Malawi in a quest for a resolutions of regulatory disputes hampering trade flows there.
His visits were most opportune in that they set in focus challenges in how trade flows are conducted across the border.
A key input towards the premier’s instructions is the way three TPA vessels plying the lake to ports on the other side have been barred from ferrying passengers and cargo from ports located on the Malawian side.
The ships include MV Mbeya II, said to have been grounded and beached on sand amid stormy weather on the lake nearly three months ago. It was stranded near Matema Port as it headed for Mbamba Bay from Kiwira port in Ruvuma Region – and officials are still seeking answers as to how that situation arose.
The premier apparently discerned areas where the issues can be sorted out rather quickly, and he called on port and regional officials to convene meetings to resolve existing disputes before the end of this month.
Operating idle ships while officials receive salaries is bad business, and it appears there are some doors which have not been tried yet.
Not only must the ships operate on both sides of the lake for optimal productivity but they are also expected to transport coal and iron from the Liganga and Mchuchuma mines – either as industrial raw materials or as fuel to users on either side of the lakeshores.
It appears at a certain level that TPA can, and therefore ought to, convene a business convention bringing together port operators from both sides of the lake to discuss existing challenges.
That may not be altogether easy as it isn’t expected that bottlenecks including blocking ships from using ports actually stems from port managers’ initiatives across the width of the lake.
But even before figuring out how to deal with that issue, some traders in the region and neighbouring areas don’t wish to use the ships plying Lake Nyasa ports to transport their commodities and industrial raw materials, and are instead opting for alternative transportation.
It is on record that MV Njombe and MV Ruvuma have been docked at Kiwira port for months for lack of cargo after some traders in the Southern Highlands regions resorted to other transportation services.
The port officials ought to have admitted that the problem is structural and massive and that their charges are far too high for comfort.
Traders can’t unite about port or ship services without sufficient cause. It is reported that they use lorries to ferry goods and, once in Malawi (or Zambia), they know what to do. It is thus a situation one is unlikely to resolve within the confines of one port meeting.
The two sets of issues have different potential solutions, as the blocking of Malawi ports is a policy issue for taking up with higher authorities in that country.
Traders’ boycotts of ships are, meanwhile, upon TPA to handle possibly by scaling down pricing in fares – even through the leasing of ships to private operators who will pay appropriate taxes.
Whichever direction the wind blows, though, it is crucial that agreement be reached as soon as practical on a lasting way out of the challenges in question.
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