President Uhuru Kenyatta during a press briefing at State House, Mombasa July 17, 2017. [Photo: PSCU]President Uhuru Kenyatta has given credit to his Jubilee administration, saying it has delivered more development in the Coast region than any other previous regime.He said contrary to allegations made by the opposition, the Jubilee government intends to create jobs for all Kenyans by opening up industrial parks across the country where goods are manufactured and transported to the port for export.
“So we want Mombasa to become a central point where all goods manufactured across our country arrive and are exported to the destinations in the rest of the world as opposed to Mombasa being purely a port where we just receive goods for our people to consume,” said Kenyatta, Monday.
Addressing the press at State House, Mombasa, he said allegations by the opposition that the Naivasha dry port would minimise operations at the Mombasa port were misplaced, saying they were afraid that their 'dubious businesses at the port would close down'.
According to him, his government was extending the Standard Gauge Railway to Naivasha where an industrial park will be built to utilize the geothermal power to manufacture goods for export.
He said the same would be done in Kisumu.
Kenyatta said his administration also planned to put up industrial parks at Dongo Kundu, Voi, Konza, Naivasha and Kisumu where goods for export would be manufactured and transported through the Standard Gauge Railway to the Mombasa port for shipping across the globe.
“The difference between us in Jubilee and our friends, whom you know their businesses here, is that we want to build an industrial base in Kenya where we export what we produce as opposed to consuming what others produce,” said Uhuru.
“What we are doing will in fact increase job opportunities to the port of Mombasa, as there will be a lot of goods for export coming from our industrial parks to be exported to other countries."