AGRICULTURE MINISTRY, logistics giant celebrate timely fertilizer delivery

Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) celebrate success attained over a fertilizer consignment which was recorded in a short timeframe contrary to the past. Officials of Doraleh Multi-purpose Port and Djibouti Customs were also praised for their seamless service they gave to MOA and ESLSE. During the event held at Ethiopian Skylight Hotel on September 17, the logistics giant and MOA have recognized partners who contributed towards the swift delivery of different fertilizers prior to the commencement of the farming season, which starts at the beginning of the rainy season.

Roba Megersa, CEO of ESLSE, said that for the past three years after the government gave a responsibility to ESLSE to manage the shipment of fertilizer from loading ports to major destination points it has attained massive performances.

“In collaboration with our stakeholders including MOA, we have seen improvements every year,” he said. “The tireless efforts and working as a single body with stakeholders at Djibouti, Doraleh Multi-purpose Port and Djibouti Customs has been one of the major reasons for success with regards to transporting fertilizers on time,” Roba told Capital. Similarly, Debele Kabeta, Commissioner of the Ethiopian Customs Commission, and Rahma Omar Bogoreh, Director of Transit Department of Djibouti, told Capital that the strong relationship and cooperation between the two countries customs offices is one of the exemplary achievement registered on the logistics sector in addition to that of the fertilizer consignment.

Regarding the port activity of handling the fertilizer cargo, Djama Ibrahim Darar, CEO of DMP, expressed his pleasure at the acknowledgement.

“We pulled in incredible efforts to deliver the fertilizer to our Ethiopian farmers on time,” Ibrahim Darar said, adding, “We have achieved the best performance regarding discharge and transport of fertilizer cargos within a very minimal time frame.”

The CEO reminded that there was a record registered regarding a single day discharge of fertilizer. DMP has managed to discharge over 20,000 tones of fertilizer in a day.

The port leader expressed his company’s commitment to continue with the high quality

service for Ethiopian cargos, “particularly for the fertilizer consignment, timely delivery is our utmost priority.” ESLSE’S CEO also acknowledged the system that DMP established to handle the fertilizer shipment from arrival to dispatch, which was done in an extraordinary fashion. Roba expressed his appreciation to Oumer Hussein, Minister of MOA, for his strong support and follow up to harmonize the operation.

Oumer said that the commitment of ESLSE and other stakeholders is recording improvement every year, “This enables us to get and distribute the fertilizer for our farmer.” Mengistu Tesfa, Agricultural Input Supply Lead Executive at MOA, said that due to different reasons starting operations for fertilizer imports has been relatively delayed compared with the past.

“When comparing the preceding experience in the year, only 203 days were needed to transport 1.3 million tons of fertilizer. A year ago it took 244 days to handle the transportation of fertilizer,” Mengistu said.

He added that the effort of Ethio-djibouti Railway SC (EDR) was fantastic to transport the cargo on rail. Roba said that in the year, 26,000 trucks voyaged between DMP port to the centre and 2,200 train wagons with 61 voyages had been assigned to transport the fertilizer. ESLSE had assigned 25 vessels to operate to transport the cargo to Djibouti, since the service is a door to door operation with the products being transferred at the nearest centre of Ethiopian farmers.

“This year the train highly supported us to accelerate the transportation of fertilizer to the centre. EDR’S share from the total fertilizer consignment was 12 percent,” the ESLSE CEO explained.