A lawmaker from the Coast is being used by the state to privatise the second container terminal at the Mombasa port, Lunga Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani has said.
The government has introduced in Parliament proposals to amend the Merchant Shipping Act to allow Transport CS to decide who runs the CT2, the code name for the second container terminal at the port.
Dock Workers Union secretary general Simon Sang said the move is a ploy to hand over the facility to Italian firm Mediterranean Shipping Company, which currently holds about 33 per cent of the shares at the Kenya National Shipping Line.
The government wants the CT2 to be run by the KNSL but MPs and other stakeholders oppose the move, saying KNSL has been making losses for the last 20 years and that it would be illogical to give it a terminal to run.
On Saturday, Lunga Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani said one of the legislators was being used to push the privatisation plan.
“One of our own is being used to coerce us to accept this thing (privatisation plan). We cannot accept it,” Mwashetani said. He spoke during a meeting with dock workers at the Mombasa Women Hall. Nine MPs attended the meeting.
He sentiments came after Lamu Woman representative Ruweida Obo denied there were plans to privatise the terminal. Obo who was the first MP to speak criticised dock workers for accusing the state without giving facts.
“I’m a pilot by profession but my husband works at the port. So, when you talk about the port, I know more about the workers’ problems,” Obo said.
“But I want you to give us facts so that we can have concrete issues for us to argue with. Not verbal back and forth like you are doing right now. You are lying to yourselves here. This is politics.”
“I know this will annoy you, but up to now, I have not seen if it is true the port is about to be sold. The meetings I have attended have told me they (state) only want a chance to be handlers of the facility, which we have not yet agreed. We are still trying to see how it will work.”
Likoni MP Mishi Mboko asked Obo to look into the privatisation matter more keenly. "This privatisation issue is not being done openly. It is being done systematically so that people do not notice," Mboko said.
“If we put our heads down, we might say there's nothing like that. But we must open our eyes and ears. If it is not yet done, there are plans to do it. That is the truth,” Mboko said.
She said some leaders were pretending not to know what was going on.
Such big ventures, she noted, need to undergo public participation, which is yet to be conducted. “If they have, then it is those that rubber stamp decisions.”
Mwashetani said when he first got wind of the privatisation plan, he gathered his own intelligence reports through the contacts he has at the port. The MP worked at the port for 25 years.
“My fellow MPs, there is no other solution. The only solution is to reject this move,” Mwashetani said.
He said privatisation was to be done before the 2017 general elections but there were ‘soldiers’ who prevented it. “We are killing our own economy by MPs agreeing and accepting to negotiate what is haunting us,” Mwashetani said.
Mombasa Senator Mohamed Faki said the government was bypassing public participation and wanted to privatise the CT2 through the back door.
He asked Sang to organise a strike to compel the government to drop the plan.
“Issue a strike notice. In Nairobi, Kenya Airways went on strike. No work was done at the airports and that is when they sat down and negotiated. So, don’t wait,” Faki urged Sang.
Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir said the state was using divide and rule tactic to achieve its objective. He said the government was deliberately using the Blue Economy to hoodwink Coast leaders and residents into letting the CT2 be privatised.
“Divide and rule will be the game of the day. People will be used to incite people that seafarers will lose their jobs,” Nassir said.
“But ask yourself, why is the international law that requires any ship that enters any port to have a percentage of the seafarers working in that shipping line coming from that country, not being implemented in Kenya?"
Mboko said there were plans to sack 3,000 port workers, a claim KPA management denied.
“There is a research firm that went and told the KPA management that they need to sack 3,000 workers. What does that indicate? Isn’t this the same narrative about privatisation? We will not accept that,” Mboko said.
“When you see dark clouds, know there is rain about to come and you should look for an umbrella.”
Edited by Peter Obuya
