All set for shipment of Sh1bn ferries

Mombasa’s two new ferries are set to leave Germany for Kenya in two weeks as scheduled, the builders said in an interview.

With Kenyan crewmen having received training in the handling of the Sh1 billion vessels, only the harsh winter weather in Germany could delay the departure of the two ferries meant to ease commuter pressure at the Likoni crossing in Mombasa.

The vessels are still in the dockyard of the German supplier Schiffs-und Yachtwerft Dresden (SYWD) waiting for the ice to melt. “I cannot tell you the exact date of departure, it depends on the weather,” the director of SYWD, Mr Thomas Müller, told the Nation in a telephone interview from Germany.

But he assured Kenyans that the long-awaited ferries were ready to leave and will be brought to Mombasa as soon as possible through Hamburg. “Right now the temperatures in Germany are minus 20 degrees Celsius. Ice floes block the water transport on River Elbe, which connects Dresden and Hamburg,” he said.

But despite the weather, preparations have been going on to release the vessels to the Kenya Ferry Service (KFS). For the last four weeks, 11 Kenyan KFS employees have endured the cold in Dresden and started training on how to maintain and repair mv Kwale and mv Likoni.

Another KFS team will be trained at the bigger port in Hamburg on how to operate the ferries. At the end of the training, KFS staff should be able to run the operations in Mombasa smoothly. He said that in the agreement with KFS, the company decided to use technical equipment from firms that are represented in Mombasa.

The main diesel engine, for example, is from Caterpillar, which has an outlet at the coastal city. “Our team is ready to fly in if necessary, but it is faster and cheaper to handle maintenance and repairs within Kenya,” Mr Müller said. Details of the journey the ferries will take are being kept secret for fear of attracting the attention of pirates.

Mr Müller said a crane will be used to place one ferry in the cargo hold of the special ship and the other on the deck of the vessel. Each ferry is 75 metres long and about 16 metres wide. They will be able to carry up to 1,550 passengers and 60 cars each.

Construction of the vessels started in June 2008 and ended in November last year. “When we welcomed the Kenyan minister of Transport in Dresden to christen the ferries, we agreed on the timetable and the way forward,” Mr Müller said, “and, according to that, we are on time.”

Problems facing KFS started about four years ago when its dilapidated vessels began using ‘inferior’ spare parts to end frequent mechanical breakdowns. This left mv Nyayo, mv Harambee and mv Kilindini operating at the risk of stalling midstream whenever plying the 500-metre Likoni stretch.

Spare parts

A source within KFS who could not be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media told the Nation that early last year engineers were forced to use motor vehicle spare parts as a short-term measure to deal with the mechanical and electrical problems.

However, the ferries got more strained when they continued to serve the ever-increasing human and vehicular cargo on the Likoni Channel from mid last year, thus increasing the frequency of their breakdowns.

The strain became evident during the December holiday when Transport permanent secretary Cyrus Njiru was forced to go aboard mv Nyayo twice to find out what was wrong with it. At one time, the PS was forced to wear an overall and join the team of technicians working to resuscitate the ferry to serve the traffic that had stretched for two kilometres on either side of the Likoni Channel.

Prior to his appointment, the Transport under secretary Isaac Kamau took over running KFS when it was riddled with allegations of misappropriation of funds as a result of a flawed system of procuring spare parts. Said the source: “Even the purchase of the public address system on the ferries was riddled with such problems, hence none of them is working.”

After witnessing first hand the problems facing the ferries, the PS ordered mv Kilindini to be withdrawn and sent for the replacement of one of its damaged prows, which had become a nightmare for boarding or disembarking motorists. To improve services on the channel, the government released Sh11 million early this month for the importation of spare parts for the three ferries acquired second-hand in the 1990s.

KFS acting managing director Isaac Kamau said the spares were not available locally and had to be flown from Belgium. According to sources, the engines of these ferries — mv Nyayo, mv Harambee and mv Kilindini — are “obsolete” in the construction industry, hence difficult to find on world markets.

For example, KFS is said to have ordered spares from Belgium after missing them in The Netherlands and Italy. While awaiting these spares to arrive, the KFS management “cannibalised” mv Kilindini’s two engines to repair mv Nyayo and mv Harambee about three weeks ago to serve the channel.

To date, mv Kilindini awaits its cannibalised engines to be repaired and prow replaced before resuming operations. Mr Kamau said: “These ferries have become fuel guzzlers and whatever income we get from our daily collection from motorists is inadequate to service them and pay our workers.”

But a source within the board felt the corporation’s workforce was “bloated” and a strain to the government. He asked: “How can 216 employees work for only five ferries? This translates to about 50 people working for only one ferry, which is absurd.” The Mombasa and Coast Tourism Association chairman John Cleave recently warned of “business flight” to neighbouring Tanzania if the situation on the Likoni Channel was not improved.

Reported by Swenja Kopp, Philip Muyanga and Mwakera