President William Ruto after his inauguration confirmed that port operation would resume back to Mombasa as he had promised during the campaign period.
“This afternoon I will be issuing instructions for clearing of goods and other attendant operational issues to revert to the port of Mombasa. This will restore a thousands of jobs in the city of Mombasa.” He said.
Ruto’s predecessor oversaw the relocation of the Mombasa port to Naivasha inland container depot in December 2019 after introducing the cargo train from Nairobi to Nairobi which raised key concerns but according to Ruto the transfer of port operations to Naivasha was against the agreement made during the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway since the dry port would only benefitted a few individuals while serving a blow to the Mombasa economy.
The move to restore port in Mombasa was well received by the coastal leaders, port stakeholders as well as the locals. Kenya International Forwarding and Warehousing Association (Kifwa) chairman Roy Mwanthi asked for urgent implementation of the executive orders hoping to revive the economy as thousands of Jobs were lost after the directive by Mr. Kenyatta.
The new president is expected to tour Mombasa this Friday for the governors’ induction and maybe cheer the election of managing director for the Kenya Port Authority (KPA) following the departure of Dr. Daniel Manduku in March 2020.