NAIROBI, Kenya- Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has revealed that vested interests derailed a plan to modernise the Port of Mombasa through a partnership with Singapore in the 1990s, a move he says could have transformed Kenya’s main harbour into one of the most efficient in the world.
Negotiations With Singapore
Speaking in an interview with journalist Alex Chamwada, Mudavadi recalled that during his tenure as Finance Minister between 1993 and 1997, Kenya explored a deal with Singapore to upgrade the port’s infrastructure and management systems.
“We were trying to get a partnership between the Port of Singapore and the Port of Mombasa because the Singapore people are extremely efficient in port management,” he said.
Mudavadi disclosed that he personally travelled to Singapore to negotiate the deal, which resulted in a team of experts agreeing to come to Kenya to begin the process of improving efficiency at the port.
Cartels Frustrated Project
However, the PCS said the initiative was met with resistance from cartels who were benefiting from rogue practices at the port.
He claimed the vested interests frustrated the Singaporean team until they abandoned the project altogether.
“When we brought these people to partner with the Port of Mombasa, the cartels in Mombasa who did not want Mombasa to achieve international standards fought and chased away the team from Singapore and frustrated them,” Mudavadi recounted.
Reflecting on the incident, he noted that Kenya’s infrastructure challenges are often self-imposed. “Kenya will not grow if we continue as an inward-looking people. We must get ourselves to see the examples, the developments and the best practices that are taking place in other countries,” he said.
Singapore has re-emerged in Kenya’s national conversation as President William Ruto has championed the “Singapore Dream”—a vision to transform Kenya into a first-world economy.
Earlier this month, Ruto launched a Sh5 trillion Infrastructure Fund to support that ambition, though the plan has faced sharp criticism from the opposition.
Mudavadi’s reflections underscore the long-standing struggle to modernise Kenya’s key infrastructure projects, where vested interests have often clashed with reform efforts.
