President Uhuru Kenyatta is on Friday expected to launch a modern shipyard at the Kenya Naval Base, Mombasa.
The project, which was built by the Kenya Navy and completed about two months ago, is poised to be one of the largest shipyards in East Africa.
In May this year, President Kenyatta launched the Kenya Shipyard Limited, a state corporation under the Ministry of Defence.
It was established out of the need for a maritime facility that can be able to repair, maintain, refit, construct ships and provide other maritime services.
The new facility at the Kenya Navy will help reduce the cost of repairing sea vessels, especially government-owned ones by Kenya Maritime Authority, Kenya Coast Guard Services, Kenya Marine and Fisheries Institute, among others.
The new Kenya Shipyard in Mtongwe will become the third such facility in Kenya after the privately-owned Southern Engineering Company and African Marine.
Currently, when a Kenyan vessels require repair, they are taken to private or outside the country, which is very expensive.
According to details from the Kenya Defence Forces, the new shipyard at Mtongwe has a capacity to handle vessels of more than 4,000 tonnes and 150 metres long.
It has two shipbuilding hangers: one is 150 metres long and 30 metres high and the other smaller one is 120 metres long, 20 metres high and 13 metres wide.
Coast regional commissioner John Elungata on Wednesday said apart from the shipbuilding and fishing sectors, the government is keen to fully explore the multibillion Blue Economy industry.
“We expect the President to be here tomorrow for the launch of the shipyard, which is going to help us grow the maritime blue economy," Elungata said.
"This is not only about fishing, but a very wide sector of the economy that has remained untapped.”
He said Kenya's coastline, which is more than 200,000 nautical miles, has a lot more to offer from shipbuilding, fishing, seafaring and many other opportunities.
Seco has been in the shipbuilding and repair business for more than 65 years, according to John Msafari, a director at the facility.
On Thursday, Msafari said the new facility at the Kenyan Navy will open up the Blue Economy, which had remained unexploited for a very long time.
“This niche of the economy had remained unexploited for a very long time. We do wish to thank the President for pushing Kenya to tap onto this,” Msafari said.
Seco, which offers technical support and partnering with the government for several Blue Economy projects, has been serving other regional countries.
Msafari said about one month ago, they delivered three pilot boats for Tanzania and repaired MV Kahawa which is owned by Uganda and operates at Lake Victoria.
“The pilot boats for Tanzania were built from scratch by our Kenyan youth, who have trained at Technical University of Mombasa, JKUAT and Bandari Maritime Academy," he said.
"We have all the expertise needed to build a ship to IMO [International Maritime Organisation] standards.”
In 2009, Seco built a 65-metre long ship named Alpha Kawira, which has a capacity to carry more than 70 containers.
“We have built ferries for Uganda from scratch, we repaired a research vessel for Rwanda and another ship from Seychelles. This shows that Kenya has a greater capacity in shipbuilding and repair,” Msafari said.
(edited by Amol Awuor)
