SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY HON. UHURU KENYATTA, C.G.H.

, PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCES OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA DURING THE OFFICIAL COMMISSIONING OF KPA BERTH NO. 19, KENYA PORTS AUTHORITY, MOMBASA, 28TH AUGUST, 2013 Your Excellencies, I want to start by welcoming you to Mombasa, Eastern Africas trading gateway. I am gratefully delighted by the honour you have bestowed me by joining me at the commissioning of Mombasa Container Terminal - Berth 19. This facility reflects the expanded capacity at the Port of Mombasa and will enable berthing of large container ships. It is the single largest berth capacity expansion undertaken in 35 years. We have only recently completed dredging of the navigable channel and widening of the turning basin. Your Excellencies, my Government has embarked on abling our port to accommodate larger vessels. The new Berth 19, with 15 acres of stacking yard, provides additional annual capacity of 200,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units and will significantly improve the port's operational efficiency. Cargo volumes at the Port of Mombasa have risen at unprecedented rates over the last three decades. The magnitude of the challenge posed by this growth has been enormous. Before the present expansion, the terminal was designed to handle an annual capacity of 250,000 Twenty Equivalent Units. The demand 900,000 Twenty Equivalent Units, so obviously we still have some way to go. My Jubilee Government has pledged its commitment to expedite the East African integration through facilitation of free movement of labour, goods and services. My Government also undertook to deepen Kenya's economic ties with our neighbours in South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, and to take very deliberate steps towards eliminating tariff and non-tariff while encouraging greater collaboration of our regional partners. Moreover, the Jubilee Coalition pledged to promote regional integration through joint infrastructure programs and investments to harness the collective potential of the region. I have enumerated these commitments to assure Your Excellencies of my Government's wholesome involvement in the projects encompassed in our Summit's action points. This port is critical to our region's development and commissioning of Berth 19 represents the pragmatic aspects of my Government's commitment. It is my Government's manifest intention to turn the Port of Mombasa into the largest, busiest and most business-friendly sea-port on the East African coast.

To consolidate the role of the Port of Mombasa in the transport logistics chain, road and rail systems must also be efficient. Receiving, processing and transporting cargo to customers in a timely fashion is a critical indicator of our port's productivity. My Government is determined to upgrade road and rail links with our neighbours, starting with the building of a standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Malaba. Our Railway Master-plan intends that a branch line also extends to Kisumu even as the railway reaches Kampala and Kigali. It is intended to increase rail freight from the current 4% to at least 50% in the next few years. Last year, the Governments of Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan jointly commissioned the LAPSSET corridor, paving way for the transformation of transport and logistics and the acceleration of social and economic development of the region. It is important that I use this opportunity to assure Your Excellencies of Kenya's commitment to this project. We are also developing a second container terminal, which is accompanied by the construction of a bypass to relieve the Likoni Channel of traffic and ease movement of goods between Kenya and Tanzania. This bypass will traverse Dongo Kundu, where a Special Economic Zone is proposed to attract business to the port and generate employment locally. Aside from infrastructure development, my Government is hastening the removal of barriers to more effective trade through the rationalisation of procedures and systems with a view to eliminating unnecessary business costs. Information technology at the port of Mombasa and along the Northern Corridor is being upgraded to provide seamless, user-friendly interfaces between government authorities and other stakeholders. It will also sharply reduce crippling red tape. The dividends of an increasingly peaceful and stable Somalia include reduced piracy in the Indian Ocean. As a result, shippers as well as local and international business communities are more confident. All these achievements have placed we as a country, as well as our East African Community partners on a firm path towards economic stability. Development is now a reality we experience daily in increasing portions. Our bonds grow deeper and stronger, and our destinies more united. Our undertakings are as much for our own good as they are for many other people in the region. This is the context in which I would like Kenyan businesses and especially public servants to understand their role. We serve a greater constituency than parochial, temporal considerations. We are called upon at this time in the development and history of our country and regional community to take up responsibilities far greater than just ordinary chores.

It is no longer a daily chore. It is a higher calling. It demands exacting higher standards and requiring of us more integrity, efficiency, discipline and accountability. We have no option. This is the call of our time. We are the custodians of the Gateway to East Africa. Our regional brothers and sisters depend on us to ensure that they never fall in want or suffer unnecessary inconvenience owing to inefficiency or corruption at this port. As Kenyans, we must wholesomely embrace professionalism, integrity and the common good. This is for our sake as well as our neighbours. In serving others, we profit ourselves the most. In being our brothers' keepers, we take best care of ourselves. With these remarks, it is my pleasure to invite my brother, His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, to address us and formally commission Berth 19. I thank you.