| PHOTO: | file photo os President Uhuru Kenyatta with Mombasa governor Hassan Joho. |
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By:
BRIAN OTIENO
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| Posted:
Feb,24-2017 17:14:42
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Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho has accused Jubilee of strangling his county's economy through the Naivasha dry port within the Rift Valley region of Kenya.
He said Nakuru Governor Kinuthia Mbugua, who supports the project, does not comprehend the "complex economics" surrounding it.
"It's not about Mombasa and Nakuru county. This is about millions of people who will lose their jobs," Joho said through spokesperson Richard Chacha.
He said the move is part of a wider scheme by Jubilee to destroying Mombasa's economy due to political differences with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
"If you take a dry port to Naivasha, it means you just offload cargo from the ship and transport it straight to Naivasha. This means all people who earn their livelihoods from the Mombasa port will suffer," Chacha said on Thursday.
He said taking port services away from Mombasa will render more than 10,000 people in Mombasa and the Coast jobless.
These include clearing and forwarding agents, shipping agents, those who work in Container Freight Stations, the owners of the CFSs, among others.
"This will go against Jubilee's pre-election pledge of creating 500,000 jobs annually," Chacha said, adding that Mbugua's thinking is politically influenced.
Mbugua on Wednesday said creating a dry port in Naivasha will boost Kenya's economic growth.
He said Naivasha is one of the fastest growing commercial centres in the country.
But Chacha said Mbugua is trivialising the matter because Naivasha falls under his county, and his people will benefit.
"The bigger idea is to deny Mombasa county revenue simply because of political differences. They just want to kill the economy of Mombasa," Chacha said.
Joho has been a fierce critic of Uhuru and the Jubilee administration.
On November 2016, DP William Ruto said governor Joho is an "academic dwarf with a questionable degree" that has caused him to oppose the setup of the dry port.
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