News Feature KNA Lamu Sea Walls and Breakwaters. Lamu 23rd October 2012. By David Mutwiri.

Flooding and destruction of property by sea waves during high tides in most parts of the Lamu archipelago are now a thing of the past after the government spent over shs 364 million in construction of sea walls and breakwaters in Pate and Ndau Islands. The projects involved the construction of 1400 meter-long sea wall at Faza Village in Pate Island and 420 meter-long breakwaters in Ndau Island in the far East part of Lamu County . Public Works Minister Chris Obure said the Faza sea wall and the Ndau breakwaters falls under a category of programmes referred to as Other Public Works, which involves construction and maintenance of footbridges, sea walls, jetties and breakwaters. Initially water used to flood into houses during high tides causing destruction of property and creating discomfort to the local community when walking and working along the Faza Seafront, said Obure. The minister made the remarks during the handing over of the Faza sea wall recently. Construction of the sea wall and the Ndau breakwaters commenced in October 2007 and was duly completed in August 2010. The Government has also allocated Sh 42 million for Kizingitini village sea wall. The project will also include extension of the sea wall on shore to create access road along the sea front during the construction of 1.35 kilometer long Ndau sea wall which is expected to be completed by July 2013 according to Eng. Benjamin Mwangi from the ministry of Public Works. About 5000 meters of sea walls have been constructed and rehabilitated in Lamu County since 2003 in view of facilitating economic development of the infrastructure and providing necessary support to the local community towards achieving vision 2030. Construction of sea walls was done by M/S Associated Construction Company Limited under the supervision of Projects Management Team from the Ministry of Public Works. The ministry will also spend Sh 1.2 billion for the rehabilitation of the Malindi Jetty with view of improving the tourism industry in the area. Meanwhile, the same ministry is working on a prototype architectural design for all county headquarters countrywide in an effort to ensure uniformity in the identity of the devolved government structures. Chris Obure while directing the Chief Architect in the ministry to design the buildings to house the county governors and the reformed arm of the central government in the counties said the

ministry was concerned with the haphazard construction of government offices in the counties which were being done with very little consultation in his ministry. The minister who was speaking in Lamu while paying a courtesy call on the County Commissioner Stephen Ikua recently said the ministry will ensure uniformity with the construction of offices which will house the devolved governments by ensuring that the buildings were built to the highest standards that will reflect the identity of the devolved system. As the ministry mandated with planning, designing, constructing and maintaining government assets, we will go out of our way to ensure that the physical infrastractural needs of the counties serve the national economy, said Mr. Obure. The minister who was reacting to a request from the county commissioner for a model building design to house government departments in Lamu county at the new county headquarters in the mainland told the chief architect to come up with drawings of structures to house the governor and the reformed provincial administration departments. The minister announced that his ministry has supervised the construction of over 750 new buildings for client ministries countrywide in the last five years and also rehabilitated over 222 projects across the country under the Facility Improvement and Refurbishment of Government Buildings programme. We have also constructed various facilities cutting across all sectors of the economy including schools, health facilities, industries and agriculture under the Economic Stimulus Programme and completed over 210 stalled buildings out of 226 earmarked for completion, observed Obure. However, the Minister accused wayward contractors of forcing the government to budget billions of shillings for the completion of stalled projects in several parts of the country. Mr. Obure said his ministry has for the last five years managed to complete over 85 percent of Government projects which stalled midstream after corrupt contractors in cahoots with ministry staff abandoned them before completion. This practice of abandoning Government projects, the minister said, has forced the Government from time to time to dig deeper into its coffers to salvage the projects. The minister, therefore, announced that his ministry will not do business with contractors who have a reputation of running away before completing Government projects. We will also go out of our way to blacklist these contractors who are fleecing the Government through shoddy work and abandoned projects midstream, said the minister. Mr. Obure announced that his ministry has allocated Sh 30 million for the construction of the Lamu East district headquarters at Faza.