- Yatani said the JOA will ensure effective and efficient movement of cargo from and into the port as Kenya transforms herself into a more competitive transport and logistic hub.
- The network established a monitoring and evaluation framework to ensure that the JOA and the various strategic plans are implemented accordingly.
The journey towards achieving more efficiency in the country’s transport and logistics sector has begun and anyone who will not adapt to the change will lose out.
This is the warning that National Treasury CS Ukur Yatani issued to businessmen and other stakeholders on Friday at the Kenya Ports Authority headquarters after presiding over the signing of the Joint Operations Agreement of the Kenya Transport Logistics Network.
The network brings together the Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Pipeline Company and the Kenya Railways Corporation, who will now be working together under the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation.
This JOA is part of the operationalisation of the KTLN.
The framework agreement of the joint operations was signed on September 8 with KPA, KPC and KRC all agreeing to work together under the ICDC chaired by John Ngumi.
It was then agreed that the JOA would be signed within 60 days.
On Friday, Yatani said the JOA will ensure effective and efficient movement of cargo from and into the port as Kenya transforms herself into a more competitive transport and logistics hub in the region and globally.
“The journey has just begun and we are going to move together as the government and as agencies. This calls for the business community, the main stakeholders of this port, to detox our minds that the business we were doing many years ago is no longer tenable,” said Yatani.
“You have to adjust and plan with this logistics network in mind,” he warned.
The network established a monitoring and evaluation framework to ensure that the JOA and the various strategic plans, including business, annual, mid and long-term plans, are implemented accordingly.
He said plans are not good enough unless they are tested.
The CS acknowledged that the human resource component could be the biggest impediment to the network.
However, he warned that the government would not hesitate to take drastic action against anyone who derails the network’s plan of action.
“We want everybody to shape up because there is no time to baby-sit you, no time to nurse your ego and no time to move with your speed. We are going to move with our speed,” said Yatani.
“If you can’t cope, then it is quite unfortunate. You have to look for an alternative,” the CS warned.
He said the global economy is more competitive than ever before and Kenyan must move with the speed at which the world moves or even faster.
He said Kenya has lost its leadership in the region and must work to regain it.
He said talk of it being easier to import goods through the Port of Durban in South Africa, more than 10,000km away than top import goods through the Kenyan port for neighbouring Uganda, less than 500km away from the Kenyan capital, hurts and must be reversed.
“That is how you make yourself unmarketable and those are the things we cannot allow,” the CS said.
He said the success and transformation of the network will determine what will happen to the people of Kenya.
The government has initiated public sector reforms, which the KTLN s part of, to ensure it remains competitive in the global market, the CS noted.
He said the government has invested heavily on other infrastructural development that will help the network work more efficiently, effectively and competitively.
However, he noted, the success of the network will also depend on the change of the mindset of stakeholders, including the police.
He warned against attempted graft in the new outfit saying there will be zero tolerance.
“We need a change of approach,” he said.
The government, due to the economic disturbance occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, has been forced to revise its economic growth projection down to 0.6 per cent from six per cent.
This means less jobs, more job losses, less revenue and less opportunities.
However, Yatani noted that Kenya has shown signs of recovery given the global economic growth rate of -4.8 per cent.
“We are in this not alone but as a group. That is why we call upon all the productive and facilitative sectors of the economy, including this network, to go beyond what they have been doing and work harder,” said CS Yatani.
Edited by Henry Makori