Kenya will start building, repairing and maintaining its own vessels in two years to save billions of shillings.
Defence CS Raychelle Omamo on Friday launched the construction of a new ultra-modern Kenya Navy Shipyard at Mtongwe Navy Base.
The shipyard will have a slipway that can handle vessels with a capacity of 4,000 tonnes and 150 metres long.
It functions as a platform on which ship are secured and winched out of water into a working area for repair and maintenance.
Previously, the Kenya Navy dockyard, which was built in 1988, was meant to repair and maintain smaller vessels with a maximum capacity of 950 tonnes and less than 60 metres long.
Currently, when a Kenyan vessel requires repair, it is taken to private firms either within, like SECO Marine and Offshore Engineering, or outside the country, which is expensive.
Omamo said with the construction of the new shipyard, Kenya will be able to build, repair and maintain its own vessels.
“We are repositioning our military to be a catalyst for development and industrialisation,” the CS said.
Defence PS Torome Saitoti said the project is part of the military modernisation programme and is one of the projects envisioned under the Vision 2030.“It is also part of the manufacturing pillar of the Big Four agenda and an important cog in harnessing the blue economy,” Saitoti said.
The project is expected to be completed by February 2021.
Omamo told the Dutch constructors, Damen Shipyards Group, and others involved in the project that she will not allow any delays or misappropriation of funds.
“I have put my heart into this project, so I expect you to deliver for me first and then the Navy,” she said.
The shipyard will have two ship building hangers, one of 150 metres long and 30 metres high and a smaller one of 120 metres long, 20 metres high and 13 metres wide.
It will have various workshops, offices, parking areas and jetties.
