Mpulungu Harbour soars high

Balance sheet in great shape after IDC takeover

The Harbour is located on the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika Picture by Victor Kalalanda

VICTOR KALALANDA, Mpulungu, August 10, 2021

If you had asked the average man on the street, or probably most Zambians, to tell you what the country’s Mpulungu Harbour is all about, chances are that you might see a smirk on their face while they matter-of-factly tell you, “I don’t know.”

They might be aware that it’s located on the Southern shores of Lake Tanganyika, but they might not be quite certain about what sort of dealings take place at the Harbour, whether it’s owned by the Zambian Government or whether it’s meant to generate revenue for the country.

If any of this is proven true, there shouldn’t be any surprise really because as a landlocked (or now landlinked) country, Zambia is not like an island home where one would expect to find a seafaring people who perfectly understand sailing jargon.

Besides, Mpulungu Harbour is situated on one far end of the country and reaching it would take a hard, long and fairly expensive journey that few locals would be willing to take, especially for adventurous reasons.

But it is here at Mpulungu Harbour that one of Zambia’s greatest success stories, in the area of contemporary state-owned enterprise, is unfolding.

When you visit Mpulungu, it’s easy to conclude that the town’s economy is organised around the Harbour—and that’s essentially true—because the tarred roads, diverse lodging facilities and what feels like a carefully planned settlement all occur within its precincts.

Wholly owned by Government’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and known as Mpulungu Harbour Corporation Limited, the company is a logistics business facilitating the movement of cargo that’s imported or exported through the Lake Tanganyika Transport Corridor.

Borne by various vessels, such cargo, which includes sugar, frozen foods like chicken or fish and construction materials like cement, sometimes ends up in Burundi, Eastern DRC or Tanzania after coming from or transiting through Zambia.

As a matter of fact, the port was built in 1930, before Zambia attained nationhood.

Following independence, it seized to operate merely as a fishing berth and served as an alternative storage facility for fuel imported through East Africa and supplied to the Northern part of Zambia.

It was therefore in 1977 that the port started handling exports to the Great Lakes Region.

According to IDC, an interesting historical note is that the “Good News was the first steamship to sail on Lake Tanganyika. This boat was placed there by the London Missionary Society, carried in sections from the lower Zambezi. It was constructed and launched at the mouth of Lufu River by Captain Hore in 1884.”

And before the company came under IDC oversight in 2015, the Harbour was managed by a non-Zambian team, whose financial performance, in relation to Government’s expectations, there is nothing to write home about.

But with a competent Zambian team now in charge, and supported by IDC’s performance targets for commercial viability and profitability, the Harbour has roared to life.

“The reality of us belonging to IDC,” says Dominic Bwalya, the port’s managing director, “gives us a clearer way of managing our performance because every year the board and management actually signs a performance contract with IDC with specific targets of things that must be achieved and there is a consistent discussion around how the performance is moving: every quarter we’ve a review around this performance with IDC. IDC is looking at how we can transform and make profitable our operations to contribute to the national coffers in terms of dividends.”

Espousing the concept of true north in leadership, IDC has ensured that Mpulungu Harbour develops a strategic business plan aimed at optimising its operations in order to remain profitable and sustainable, for the benefit of all Zambians, as a state-owned enterprise (SOE).

Currently, the company ambitiously seeks to create a modern, fourth-generation port, which shall not only be about loading and offloading vessels as a form of business, but one that shall create an economic zone around Mpulungu to facilitate such things as production and processing of an entire range of commodities.

This will be funded through strategic partnerships, as the company warms towards procuring and introducing what will be Zambia’s first ever registered ship on the waters of Lake Tanganyika, which is the longest freshwater lake in the world.

But all of this is not empty boardroom talk.

From a history of loss making, Mpulungu Harbour has risen to its heady days, declaring its first dividend of K2.4 million to IDC for the financial year ended 2020.

In 2019 itself, the port generated a profit of about K1.5 million, which increased to K16 million in 2020, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And in 2021, the company’s growth trajectory shows no signs of slowing down, but it is all the more getting stronger, becoming ballast in Zambia’s industrialisation drive and job creation agenda.

“We have a staff establishment of about 103 people who are either on contract or permanent and pensionable, but beyond that we’re also employing in excess of 200 people to help with specific work in terms of cargo handling. So we’ve a huge cadre of daily wage employees who are also being employed to specifically handle cargo,” says Bwalya, who has over 23 years of combined solid experience in business strategy, marketing, sales and distribution, including accounting.

The company has actually become a competitive employer, attracting locally but highly trained Zambians in the fields of accounting and finance, human resource and administration, among other fields.

A general worker at the port, 39-year-old Robert Sichula, says “the money I earn here helps me support my children in school, eat and take care of my family. With the coming of IDC, much has changed here. We no longer carry heavy loads on our heads, for example. We use cranes.”

The port’s community impact, in addition to jobs, is felt through procurement of goods like company fuel locally, supporting the nearby hospital by maintaining the children’s ward and running its own football team that’s as nearly auspicious as the company itself.

Additionally, the company has played an active donor role in the district response team for COVID-19 and also malaria.

With such promising performance, the company’s board chairman himself, Elias Mpondela, says “Mpulungu port is well positioned to foster trade and economic links between Zambia and the Great Lakes region.”

It could not be said any better about a company that owns and operates Zambia’s principal port on Lake Tanganyika.