Lamu port construction continues 24/7. The $400 million port is fully funded by Treasury and it will have 3 modern berths by June 2019 and the first berth is due for completion on July 2018.
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The first berth is near completion.
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[SIZE=7]Ethiopia gets Lamu land to cut reliance on Port of Djibouti[/SIZE]
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2018 21:03
BY GEORGE OMONDI https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/image/view/-/4551768/medRes/1966742/-/maxw/960/-/91vy8g/-/abiy.jpg
Landlocked Ethiopia is set to build an office in Lamu, giving the clearest indication yet of its intention to shift some of its logistics undertakings to the Kenyan coast. The Kenyan government has committed to set aside some land to enable Ethiopia set up the logistics facility.
“The Kenyan side will facilitate the formal acquisition of land in Lamu Port given to the Ethiopian government,” states a joint communique issued after bilateral talks between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali on Monday.
“The Ethiopian side reiterated its commitment to develop the land for logistics facilitation.”
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At the moment, Ethiopia has mainly relies on the Port of Djibouti for sea link to the rest of the world after the 1992 independence of Eritrea cut its Red Sea connection and rendered it landlocked. Unlike Kenya whose territorial Indian Ocean waters cover about 128,015 square kilometres but does not have a single merchant ship, Ethiopia has more than a dozen state-run seagoing vessels.
Its drive to shift part of its sea-based transport to Kenya implies that a corridor running from Addis Ababa to Lamu must equally be developed urgently. That will allow its traders to move exports to Lamu and ship imports back by trucks and trains.
On Monday, the two leaders committed to the development of Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor (Lapsset) including road network between Isiolo, Moyale through to Addis Ababa as well as the railway from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
“Both sides agreed to jointly supervise and inspect the Lamu-Garissa-Isiolo-Moyale and Moyale-Hawassa-Addis Ababa road networks,” states the communique.
The leaders committed to expand the border town of Moyale into a joint city to boost socio-economic integration. The Joint Moyale City will host a special economic zone, the two leaders said.
Meanwhile for immediate former Ethiopian Prime Minister visited Kilindini Mombasa port to familiarize himself on the 5th largest port in Africa. Ethiopia also wants to use this port immediately since the road link to Moyale Ethiopia border is complete and it can serve south Ethiopia.
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What I like is that everyone is pushing to get into Lamu port. Ethiopia has placed it as a strategic ocean gateway to rival Djibouti since it’s catastrophic to depend on one port. China, usa, uk firms are bidding for its full development to 33 berths and Lamu Special economic zones. Well Lapsset is gaining pace rapidly.
KDF is setting up a permanent base of operations in Bole forest. However it will need patrols on the Somali side of the forest and the Kenyan side. Electric fencing on our end would be paramount. However the war in Somali must be won. That’s why we remain there. If we can spend Kshs 40 billion on the port alone we can spend 10 billion on the border fence in Lamu county.
@spear ,completion 2019 or 2020? By my estimate, I expect them to miss the June deadline for the first berth but deliver the other two ahead of schedule.
shida ni hawana pesa, to buy a stake in Beira and Djibouti ports they need dollars not the useless birr. Last I heard they wanted Ethiopia air to buy it on their behalf and that is how its cookie will crumble. It already carries too much debt from buying airlines, new planes and now you want to add a port?
The first berth will be ready in a few weeks only that it wouldn’t have the cranes to begin work. That was thesame case with Kilindini Mombasa second container terminal. Its cranes are just been installed as we speak. The other two Lamu berths are due in a years time as well. Lamu port was allocated another 10 billion this next financial year and I believe that can cater for the cranes. All in all GoK has done its bit now its to tender the rest of the port development by PPP.
Ethiopia has done well to accelerate its infrastructure development in the last decade. We are behind them on hydro power generation and Special Economic Zones. However we have caught up on roads and train expansions. However Ethiopia has been doing a lot of projects simultaneously and its has hurt their cash resources. Their stadiums, garbage disposal plant, hydro dams, railways and road projects have stalled or moving slowly due to $$$ shortages or funding gaps. If you notice they have frozen launch of new public projects since 2015. However I wish them all the best, eventually all this projects will be linked to our own and we are learning from their mistakes. What we have that they don’t is a vibrant and oiled private sector backed by a highly trained workforce. That is how we will catch up to them. We build a road, people build along them with their own money spurring economic growth and development.
Once the satellite is up, security will be able to see the movement below and monitor the long boarder and also observe activity of that other pain, cattle rustlers.