There’s a major game-changer just around Kenya’s corner. Set to yield results by 2030, a multi-billion-dollar investment in transport network infrastructure will help decongest the major seaport of Mombasa and unlock economic opportunities in the country, the region and eventually the entire continent.
Launched in March 2012, the ambitious $360-billion Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Project plans to link Kenya with landlocked neighbours such as Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda.
In the African interior, the LAPSSET rail, road and pipeline project is perfectly positioned to open opportunities for Cotonou in Benin, while connecting Cameroon’s administrative capital of Douala, with the sole purpose of promoting increased trade among African member states.
In an exclusive interview with CAJ News Africa on the sidelines of the two-day Kenya-South Africa Trade and Investment Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, LAPSSET director-general Sylvester Kasuku said the ambitious project was aimed at boosting Kenya’s second largest seaport.
Presently, Mombasa’s southern port is heavily congested. The creation of Lamu seaport in Kenya’s southeast region will open both sea and inland borders to new flows of trade and industry.
“The LAPSSET Corridor Project is the largest game-changing infrastructure project that the government of Kenya has initiated and prepared under the Vision 2030 Strategy Framework,” said Kasuku. He noted that the project is being implemented without foreign aid.
“The project will obviously foster transport linkage between Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia. This will boost regional socioeconomic development along the transport corridor — especially in the Northern, Eastern, North-Eastern and coastal parts of Kenya,” said Kasuku.
The LAPSSET corridor project covers over half of the country, with a planned investment resource equivalent to half of Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP). It is anticipated to inject initially between 2-3% of Kenya’s GDP (currently at $60.9-billion) into the economy.
Investors at the Kenya-South Africa Trade and Investment Summit predicted the LAPSSET project would contribute an additional 8-10% into Kenya’s GDP when fully functional.
Already, the project stretches a distance of 1 000km into Ethiopia. Another massive 500km highway linking Kenya to South Sudan is on course.
Kasuku told South African investors that LAPSSET’s objective in developing Lamu Port is to provide a second seaport and transport corridor gateway link to service the expanding import and export cargo base, which includes new markets opening up in South Sudan and Ethiopia. This, in turn, will reduce the reliance on Mombasa as the sole nerve centre of trade.
In May 2016, LAPSSET was awarded the prestigious “African Investor (Ai) Award of the year 2016 for the Regional Infrastructure Investment Initiative” during the Ai CEO Infrastructure and Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment Summit Awards in Johannesburg.
This award was given in recognition of the pivotal assistance that the Lamu seaport will play on the continental backdrop. The Lamu project will offer an additional transshipment port, second only to South Africa’s Durban seaport, along the Eastern and Southern African coastline.
Durban is Africa’s busiest seaport, connecting huge volumes of businesses among landlocked Southern African Development Community member states comprising Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“The establishment of a transshipment port at Lamu Port on the Indian Ocean coastline at a time when the Suez Canal is being widened will enable the new port to play the role of a transshipment port to serve the eastern and Southern Africa region, thus creating a new hub character in the Kenyan economy,” said Kasuku. — CAJ News