President Uhuru Kenyatta has challenged 350 newly hired seafarers to be good brand ambassadors of the Kenyan nation saying their conduct will determine the demand for Kenyan maritime professionals by international shipping lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo the new recruits that we are commissioning today, let me remind you that you sail out as our ambassadors. How many more Kenyans are recruited in the future will, to a large extent, depend on the image of Kenya you project abroad,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Head of State spoke on Wednesday at the Kenya Maritime Academy in Mombasa County during the flag off ceremony of 350 young Kenyan seafarers recently recruited by Atlanta based Celebrity Cruises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The President recalled with nostalgia the good old days when Kenya used to be the leading regional source market for seafarers, serving major shipping lines across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI remember the many Kenyans who used to come here with good money after serving abroad. We wish you the very best as you embark on your new career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe recall that in the early 70s we used to have more than 10,000 seafarers as a country, and these were men and women who actually breathed life not only to Mombasa but to many other towns in our country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But because of mismanagement of the sector this was reduced to almost nothing,” President Kenyatta said as he thanked Celebrity Cruises and other shipping for continuing to offer young Kenyan seafarers employment opportunities on their vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to begin, in particular, to thank the Mediterranean Shipping Company MSC. Because they came in as our very first partners and as General (Rtd) Mwathethe said, you took some of our young men and women, both of whom I had the pleasure of launching, who have proven to be very successful,\u201d President Kenyatta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He thanked Kenya’s blue economy office led by General (Rtd) Samson Mwathethe and State House Deputy Chief of Staff responsible for policy and strategy Mrs Ruth Kagia for steering the restoration of the seafaring profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to recognize the works that have been done by both the ministry in charge of maritime and a special vote of thanks to Retired General Samson Mwathethe and Madam Ruth Kagia who for the last five years have really been struggling to see how we can restore some of that lost glory,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier, President Kenyatta, who was on a day-long working tour of Mombasa County commissioned several infrastructural projects among them the new Ksh 4.5 billion Makupa Bridge, the offshore Kipevu Oil Terminal and the Liwatoni Fisheries Complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Uhuru Kenyatta has challenged 350 newly hired seafarers to be good brand ambassadors of the Kenyan nation saying their conduct will determine the demand for Kenyan maritime professionals by international shipping lines. \u201cTo the new recruits that we are commissioning today, let me remind you that you sail out as our ambassadors. How many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}