The term of Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC) chairman John Ngumi has ended as the State remained silent on his replacement at the helm of the agency.
Mr Ngumi confirmed last week that his ICDC contract has ended. He took over the institution responsible for management of State’s investments in ports, rail and pipeline services for a two-year term that came to a close on May 31, 2022.
He had just left Kenya Pipeline Company where he was serving as the chairman of the board.
“Renewal decisions are the prerogative of the appointing authority,” Mr Ngumi told Business Daily.
The Jubilee administration has been propping up the ICDC as the central logistics entity, bringing together three major parastatals in the transport sector expected to ease the movement of goods from the Port of Mombasa and cut costs that have been increasing in the recent past.
It is not clear whether the creation of the body -- Kenya Development Network -- has made any impact on the logistics sphere even as his term came to a close.
He defended his achievements at the body, saying that a lot has been done to set the country on the path to a “coherent, integrated transport and logistics network.”
In the President’s order appointing the chairperson of the ICDC and revoking the appointment of Bernard Muteti Mungata, it was stated that the ICDC will develop a framework for the management, coordination and integration of public port, railway and pipeline services.
State House said the network will leverage on the efficiencies and synergies of the four State agencies to achieve Kenya’s strategic agenda of becoming a regional logistics hub.
The new framework allows for the centralisation and co-ordination of operations without amending the laws or causing undue disruption to the legal structuring of the State entities.
