President Uhuru Kenyatta will in mid next month launch the first berth in Lamu Port, Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia announced yesterday.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Mombasa, Mr Macharia said the first ship – owned by Maersk Shipping Line – would also dock at the port during the official launch to be graced by up to five heads of state.\u201cThis is a continental project. We postponed to give guests from even South Africa an opportunity to attend,\u201d he said during a regional ministerial meeting on Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (Lapsset) project.<\/p>\n
Macharia said construction of second and third berths would be completed by December. \u201cWe are addressing the security challenges to facilitate the completion of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, more than 1,000 construction works at Lamu port were suspended after Al Shabaab militants attacked a United States military base at Manda Bay airstrip, 10km north of the port.The invasion at the military base took place days after the militants also attacked three buses at the Nyongoro area on the Garsen-Lamu road and killed three passengers. A multi-agency security team is currently combing the expansive Boni Forest believed to be the militants’ hiding ground.Last week, the China Communications Construction Company, Ltd, which is building the first three berths at the port, sent its employees home, saying it could not guarantee their security.<\/p>\n
Yesterday Macharia said work had resumed and construction of two more berths and roads, including the Lamu-Garsen highway, would be completed as scheduled.He was addressing the regional ministerial meeting on the Lapsset corridor, which has been elevated to a Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative (PICI) under the African Union.<\/p>\n
Participants from Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan said they would fashion a coordinated approach to make Lapsset projects attractive to private investors.Africa Union High Representative on Infrastructure Raila Odinga said Lapsset was key to the realisation of the East-West Trans-Continental beltway.The beltway will connect Kenya\u2019s Lamu Port to Cameroon\u2019s seaports in Douala via Juba and Bangui to facilitate trade between East and West Africa. \u201cLapsset is an idea whose time has come.<\/p>\n
We must re-energise the vision and give new impetus to the implementation of the Lapsset corridor,\u201d said Raila.Meles Alem, the Ethiopian ambassador to Kenya, dismissed reports questioning his country\u2019s commitment to implementation of Lapsset.\u201cEthiopia is not backtracking on Lapsset. Our commitment to this project is not hinged on diplomatic consideration, it is about the economic benefit of our people,\u201d said Mr Alem.<\/p>\n
He said Ethiopia had already constructed two mega industrial parks and was constructing a 500-kilometre road connecting Addis Ababa to Moyale in Kenya.South Sudan Transport Minister David Hassan said his government was also committed to constructing the road from Juba to Cameroon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Uhuru Kenyatta will in mid next month launch the first berth in Lamu Port, Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia announced yesterday. Speaking in Mombasa, Mr Macharia said the first ship – owned by Maersk Shipping Line – would also dock at the port during the official launch to be graced by up to five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8],"tags":[402,362,242,464],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","tag-al-shabaab","tag-president-uhuru-kenyatta","tag-raila-odinga","tag-transport"],"yoast_head":"\n