When Elijah Mbaru, Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Ships Agents Association (KSAA), addressed a logistics conference in Nairobi recently, he issued a wake-up call that no player in Kenya’s trade ecosystem can afford to ignore. His message was clear and consequential: shipping lines demand predictability, speed, and volume from an integrated logistics and e-commerce value chain. If Kenya cannot deliver these fundamentals, its ambition to become East Africa’s undisputed trade and logistics hub will remain just that—an ambition.
Mbaru’s intervention cuts to the heart of a paradox. Kenya possesses one of the region’s most strategically important maritime gateways—the Port of Mombasa, which handled a record 2.11 million TEUs in 2025. Yet competitiveness is not measured by cargo volumes alone. What truly matters is how quickly, predictably, and cost-effectively cargo traverses the entire chain: from ship to port, from port to hinterland, and ultimately to the consumer.
For shipping lines, time is money. Every unnecessary hour a vessel, container, or truck spends waiting adds costs that ultimately inflate the price of trade. As Mbaru has previously observed, a ship sitting idle can cost an operator tens of thousands of dollars per day. In a fiercely competitive global industry, such inefficiencies can determine whether a shipping line maintains a route, reduces its calls, or diverts capacity elsewhere.
The Trinity of Logistics Competitiveness
Mbaru identified three interconnected priorities that must now become central to Kenya’s logistics policy: high container utilisation, real-time data visibility, and rapid asset turnaround. These are not luxuries for an advanced economy—they are the foundational pillars of any modern supply chain.
Speed is the currency of modern logistics. Ship turnaround time is critical. The faster a vessel can berth, discharge, load, and sail again, the more efficiently lines can deploy their expensive assets. For Kenya, this means treating vessel and cargo turnaround as a national competitiveness issue—not merely an operational concern for the Kenya Ports Authority.
Performance indicators show Mombasa has made significant progress in reducing waiting and turnaround times. However, persistent congestion pressures and high yard utilisation demonstrate how quickly these gains can erode. The lesson is straightforward: efficiency cannot be celebrated as a one-off achievement; it must become a permanent, non-negotiable feature of the system. A port that performs well for months but becomes unpredictable during bad weather, equipment breakdowns, or administrative disruption remains a difficult port for global shipping lines to plan around. Predictability is therefore as vital as speed.
Data is the nervous system of the supply chain. The second imperative is accurate forecasting and real-time information sharing. Modern logistics depends on knowing where cargo is, when it will arrive, how much space is available, and what is required at every stage of the journey. Shipping lines, ports, freight forwarders, customs agencies, transporters, warehouses, and e-commerce platforms must all work from the same operational picture.
Kenya has made progress in digitalising logistics, but the sector remains fragmented. Different players often operate siloed systems that do not communicate effectively. The consequences are predictable: delays, duplication, poor forecasting, unnecessary truck movements, inefficient storage, and ultimately, higher costs. The next phase of digital transformation must therefore go beyond putting individual services online. The objective must be integration. API connectivity between e-commerce platforms, warehouse management systems, freight-forwarding platforms, port community systems, and vessel-tracking applications should become standard practice. When a customer asks, “Where is my cargo?”, the logistics system should provide an accurate answer immediately—not after a chain of frantic phone calls and emails. That is what supply-chain visibility means in practice.
Scale turns e-commerce into maritime demand. The third pillar is volume. Shipping lines do not operate on optimism; they deploy vessels where they can identify sustainable and predictable cargo flows. This is where Kenya’s expanding e-commerce economy becomes strategically important. Digital commerce is reshaping consumer behaviour and distribution networks, but it cannot reach its full potential without a logistics system capable of moving large volumes quickly, reliably, and affordably.
For Kenya, this presents both an opportunity and a warning. The opportunity is to connect the digital economy with the Port of Mombasa and the wider regional market. The warning is that e-commerce can grow faster than the physical logistics infrastructure supporting it. A successful digital economy requires more than online marketplaces and digital payments. It needs warehouses, fulfilment centres, reliable road and rail corridors, efficient customs processes, cargo visibility, and predictable maritime connections. Digital commerce and maritime logistics must be treated as two sides of the same economic coin.
Beyond Port-Centric Thinking
Perhaps the most important policy lesson from Mbaru’s intervention is that Kenya must stop viewing Mombasa as merely a port. A port is only one component of a much larger logistics corridor. The true measure of competitiveness is not simply how quickly a vessel is discharged; it is how efficiently cargo moves from the ship through the terminal, onto road or rail, through border and customs procedures, and eventually to markets in Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and beyond. A world-class port connected to inefficient hinterland corridors is not a world-class logistics system.
Kenya must therefore accelerate investment in roads, rail, inland container depots, logistics parks, and border infrastructure linking Mombasa and Lamu with the national and regional hinterland. The Standard Gauge Railway remains a vital component, but the broader objective should be seamless multimodal connectivity—where road, rail, maritime, and digital systems operate as one integrated network. This is also why Lamu Port should be developed within a broader regional corridor strategy, not as a standalone infrastructure project.
Regulation Must Enable, Not Obstruct
Infrastructure and technology alone will not make Kenya competitive. The regulatory environment matters just as much. Duplicative inspections, fragmented agency mandates, unpredictable charges, and sudden regulatory changes can erase the efficiency gains achieved through expensive investments.
Kenya needs a regulatory environment in which traders and logistics operators can calculate costs and delivery times with confidence. Predictability must extend beyond physical cargo movement to taxation, customs procedures, inspections, port charges, documentation, and compliance. The government should intensify efforts to harmonise border and cargo-control procedures, eliminate duplication among agencies, and strengthen risk-based inspection systems. Every unnecessary administrative step is effectively a tax on trade.
The Case for a National Logistics Strategy
Mbaru’s remarks also expose the need for Kenya to think more strategically about logistics as a whole. The country has numerous institutions dealing with different components of the supply chain, but logistics competitiveness requires coordination across these institutional boundaries.
Kenya should develop a comprehensive National Logistics Competitiveness Strategy that brings together maritime, port, road, rail, aviation, customs, warehousing, e-commerce, and digital sectors. Such a framework should establish measurable national targets for:
· vessel turnaround times;
· cargo dwell times and container evacuation;
· truck and rail freight utilisation;
· customs clearance and border-crossing times;
· digital integration across platforms;
· overall logistics costs; and
· reliability of regional trade corridors.
Performance must be measured not simply by how much cargo Kenya handles, but by how cheaply, quickly, and predictably that cargo reaches its final destination.
Kenya’s Competitive Window
Kenya has many of the ingredients required to become East Africa’s leading logistics hub: a strategically located deep-water port, an expanding road and rail network, a growing digital economy, a sophisticated financial sector, a sizeable consumer market, and access to some of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. But geography alone does not guarantee competitiveness. Ports compete with other ports. Corridors compete with other corridors. Shipping lines constantly assess the cost, reliability, and efficiency of alternative routes.
Tanzania’s investment in Dar es Salaam, the development of regional corridors, and the emergence of alternative gateways mean Kenya cannot afford complacency. The competition is no longer simply about who has the biggest port—it is about who can offer the most reliable end-to-end supply chain. That is the real meaning of predictability, speed, and scale.
The Choice Before Kenya
Elijah Mbaru’s message should be treated not as an industry observation, but as a policy challenge. Kenya can continue to measure success by the number of ships calling at Mombasa and the number of containers passing through its terminals. Or it can adopt a more ambitious definition of success—one based on how efficiently cargo moves from the global market to the final consumer. The first approach measures activity; the second measures competitiveness. Kenya must choose the second.
The country does not lack the infrastructure, entrepreneurial talent, or strategic location required to become a logistics powerhouse. What it needs is stronger coordination, sustained investment, smarter regulation, and a willingness to treat logistics as a national economic priority.
Shipping lines want predictability. Businesses want speed. Markets demand scale. Consumers increasingly expect visibility and reliability. These are no longer optional features of modern trade—they are the price of entry. Kenya’s logistics moment has arrived. The question is whether the country will seize it—or allow competing regional gateways to capture the opportunity.
As Mbaru himself vividly put it, a port without ships is like a stage without actors: it may be impressive, but the performance cannot happen. Kenya must ensure the ships keep coming—and, more critically, that the cargo they bring moves swiftly, predictably, and competitively across the country and the region.
The writer is a Mombasa-based public intellectual and maritime affairs analyst.