A joint decision of the General Managers of PAK and PAD, made at the end of last August, created a project team to organize a maritime cabotage service between the three ports of the above-mentioned cities.
Cabotage is maritime transport between neighbouring ports located on the same coast. This activity has been long awaited since the start of operations of the Kribi Deep-sea Port. It is indeed a key activity in the complementarity policy of Cameroon ports since big vessels that cannot enter the Port of Douala can unload their cargo in Kribi and these will be transferred to Douala by smaller vessels. To offer this service to Cameroonian shippers while ensuring the performance of maritime transport in the country, Patrice MELOM, General Manager of the Port Authority of Kribi (PAK) and his peer Cyrus NGO’O, General Manager of the Port Authority of Douala (PAD) took a joint decision on 24 August 2020, to reorganize the project team for a streamlined coordination of the actions taken to organize a maritime cabotage service between the ports of Kribi, Douala and Limbé.
The mission of the project team is to make proposals and pilot all the actions that are required to set up the cabotage line. In this regard, the team will support PAK and PAD in carrying out a study to analyse the conditions for the economic and technical profitability of such a service between the three ports. In addition, it will define the selection process of the technical partner of the project; and this entails drafting the financial, legal, technical and commercial terms of the project. The project-team will equally have to define the modalities for the participation of public and private stakeholders in the project, taking into account its different stages, etc. Pending the work of the project team, CAMSHIP CLGG has announced that a cabotage service is already planned to take place between Kribi and Douala.
This weekly activity is set to start next Tuesday 22 September 2020. We asked Michael MAMA, Operations Manager at PAK, to shed some light on the time required to start operations, the specificities and outlines of the two cabotage projects on the Cameroonian coastline. He states that “maritime cabotage promotes coastal transport over short distances, while allowing the arrival of large direct lines via the Port of Kribi, where dispatching can easily be carried out to neighbouring ports with smaller draughts”.
