Compensation plans of the affected fishers during the construction of the first berth of the Port of Lamu, have been finalized.
LAPSETT Chairpersons committee made the announcement and said that they have approved the recommendations made by the Fishermen Compensation Task Force earlier on this month.ย The compensation process will commence once the fishermen provide the bank account details and their lawyers have executed the consent letter required to be filed in court. About 4,734 fishers are set to receive the compensation.
The process has taken too long to be concluded after the Lamu County Fisher Folks filed in court a Petition challenging among other issues the environmental impact to their fishing brought about by the construction of the Port as captured in the government Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) for the construction of the 1st three berths of Lamu Port.
Kenya Vision 2030
โIn the lead up to the operationalization of the first berth of the port of Lamu, the need to conclude the compensation before completion and operationalisation of the works on the 1st three berths was prioritized. Accordingly, the task force on fishermen compensation task force was reconstituted and facilitated to complete the process of identifying the list of 4734 beneficiaries as outlined in the Lamu County report tabled in the High Court. A total of Sh 1.7bn shall be utilized to compensate the Fishers in cash and for sustainability projects,โ said Ag. Managing Director, Rashid K. Salim.
The Kenya Ports Authority as the project proponent facilitated and embarked on a two-week exercise running from 25th April to 8th May 2021 that entailed verifying and validating the fisher folks who will be compensated as stipulated in the adopted report presented to the court.
Construction of the Lamu Port began in December 2016 with the dredging works on the three berths. It is part of the Sh2.5 trillion Lamu-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). The foundation stone of the LAPSSET project was laid by former President Mwai Kibaki in 2012, a dream that finally comes to fruition nine years later. The Lamu Port is also a Kenya Vision 2030 flagship project and is expected to transform regional economies through increased trade
