State bets on Lamu port despite worries

By Yara Bayoumy

The country’s ambitions to build a world-class port in its southern Lamu region would have a big payoff, but it will also inflict irrevocable damage on the area’s image as a tourist paradise and on the livelihoods of its fishermen.

The $23 billion project, which includes a $5.3 billion port, will link Lamu to Ethiopia and newly independent oil-rich South Sudan, bringing investment and much-needed jobs to the region. A railway, pipeline, highway, airport and refinery would follow.

According to a master plan, an estimated 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil will need to piped out of South Sudan to Lamu.

Financing for the massive project is uncertain and observers also question whether the Government has thought through the many other obstacles — which include the effect on local industry to concerns the shipping activity will attract pirates from neighbouring Somalia.

Enviromentalists say the multi-billion port at Manda Bay, which juts out into the Indian Ocean towards the islands of Lamu, Manda and Pate, will destroy delicate marine life and choke coral reefs and mangroves.

Lamu fishermen complain that dredging will kill off their livelihood and residents are angry they will be forced off the land they have lived on for centuries.

But the Government has maintained focus on the huge potential, and is intent on breaking ground in two months.

"It will be the single major project since the country gained independence," Land Minister Joseph Orengo said.

"If South Sudan decides to use Lamu port as its major export point, what we’re going to earn is colossal even compared to the business we’re doing now through Mombasa (port)."

President Kibaki will host a groundbreaking ceremony in November to be attended by regional heads of state, by which time the Government hopes to have awarded the first construction tender for the first phase of the project — dredging and building three berths.

Government officials will hold an investment conference before then to attract private and public funds to cover part of the cost. The government’s own contribution will be found in successive budgets, Orengo has said.

Government funds earmarked so far include about Sh3 billion ($30 million) earned from the sale of a state-owned hotel and more than Sh5 billion allocated in the 2011/2012 budget.

— Reuters