The Kenya Coast Guard Service will establish its headquarters in Kilifi county, Director General, Loonena Naisho has said.
Naisho said the government has identified a 10-acre piece of land on the shores of the Indian Ocean in Mnarani, where the headquarters will be built.
The KCGS currently operates from a base at Liwatoni Fisheries Complex in Ganjoni, Mombasa.
However, the base is small and cannot accommodate the growing unit.
“We are working with the Ministry of Lands and other government agencies to get the total acreage of the land and the required documentation before we move in to establish our headquarters here,” Naisho said.
He spoke on Friday during a ceremony to receive a Sh60 million patrol boat from the Kenya Revenue Authority at Mnarani in Kilifi.
The national government ordered KRA to hand over the boat to KCGS to boost its operations. KRA has three boats operating in Kilifi county.
During the launch of the KCGS by President Uhuru Kenyatta on November 2018, a vessel KCGS DORIA was also commissioned.
Uhuru mandated the unit to protect Kenya’s territorial waters against terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing, human and drug trafficking among other maritime crimes.
KCGS has already established four command centres on Lake Victoria as part of its expansion programme, Naisho said.
They will also have command centres in all the coastal towns bordering the Indian Ocean from Lamu to Kwale, he said.
The director general said the entire coastal stretch has over 600 private landing sites which could be used for smuggling of drugs, firearms and contrabands.
“We now have the powers. If we arrest ships that are bringing in drugs, we will destroy them by sinking them in the deep seas,” he said.
During its commissioning, the unit had about 200 officers drawn from government agencies, including the Kenya Navy, the Kenya Maritime Authority, Marine Police Unit and others.
Naisho said they are still receiving officers seconded to them by the national government from other state agencies before they start recruiting other staff.
(edited by O. Owino)
