President Uhuru Kenyatta was on Wednesday, October 16, in Kisumu County to visit the Kisumu Port project that was set for launch on August 15, 2019, in a hyped activity that was postponed in the last minute.
The project, touted to be the major fruit of the handshake, saw the president and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga tour the region together in a bid to popularize it.
The Daily Nation reported on Wednesday, October 16, that President Uhuru paid an impromptu visit to the region to assess the project and address the concerns raised by reports from contractors who were questioning its sustainability.
This, the publication reported, was because the idea to renovate the port had not followed the four-step process that had been earlier recommended by the Lake Region Economic Block (LREB) who designed the plan for the port's revamping.
LREB'S four phases, which included the removal and management of water hyacinth, the dredging of the port and construction of a 63.1-kilometer canal complete with navigational aids, upgrading of the terminal to handle 4000 containers and resuscitating of the Kisumu-Nakuru Meter gauge Railway.
The Daily Nation reported that by the time the president was visiting, only the modernization of the port was taking place, a premise upon which the president was set to launch the project.
Experts were, however, reported to have called for at least the first two phases of the project to be completed before the port was reopened.
Obora Okoth, the head of research and resource mobilization at LREB warned the government against rushing to implement the project, stating that it was bound to be a failure if the government did not consider expert opinion.
"In about two or three months, the weed will be back. There is a need to address the menace once and for all, and not carrying out one component in isolation. This may hamper the full utilization of the port," he was quoted.
He explained that the failure to dredge the port, a process that was supposed to take 18 months, would affect navigation.
In August 2019, The Standard reported that a multi-million shilling dredging machine unveiled as part of the ongoing Kisumu port expansion was still lying idle, seven months after it was commissioned by ODM leader Raila Odinga.
