Major general Paul Oduor Otieno will now be the new commander of Kenya Navy after serving as the inaugural CEO of the ship construction parastatal since 2021.
At Navy, he is succeeding Maj-Gen Thomas Ng’ang’a, who has been moved to the role of Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Administration and Finance, at the National Defence University-Kenya.
Ng'ang'a had barely settled in office as commander of the Navy, having taken office as the boss in mid March when he replaced Lieutenant general Jimson Mutai who was appointed Vice chancellor of National Defense university.
Until his appointment as commander of the Kenya Navy, Major General Otieno was the managing director at the Kenya Shipyards Limited. Former president Uhuru Kenyatta appointed him to that role on May 31, 2021.
The state-owned corporation is a limited liability parastatal company, under the Ministry of Defence, created through Executive Order on August 14, 2020.
He served as boss of the ship constructing cooperation despite a spirited fight by a lobby to have him removed, questioning the integrity of his appointment process at the time.
Commission for Justice and Human Rights in 2022 moved to court seeking orders stopping him from discharging the duties of managing director pending determination of the case.
In his affidavit, CJHR executive director Julius Ogogoh claimed the appointment was not gazetted and there was no shortlisting done, meaning he was handpicked.
The primary objective of KSL is to build, repair and service water vessels, including ships and boats of the Kenyan Navy.
A secondary objective is to carry out the same function for the Kenyan and regional private sector, the tertiary one is to build, repair and service ships and boats for the regional governments.
