Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has announced that the national government is in the process of acquiring boats to enable fishermen to access the deep ends of the Indian Ocean.

Speaking at Jilore Grounds in Kilifi County during the economic empowerment programme on Saturday, July 5, 2025, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki revealed that the boats will arrive in the country in a few months.

According to Kindiki, the acquisition will enable Kenyan fishermen to venture into the high seas for their trade.

“We are investing in acquiring boats.  President William Ruto has instructed the Ministry of Mining, Blue Economy, and Maritime Affairs Cabinet Secretary (CS) Haasan Joho, to acquire deep-sea boats for fishermen in the next few months. The process has begun,” he announced.

This comes a few months after Joho announced that the vessels will have a storage capacity of more than 10,000 tonnes of fish.

The boats

Speaking during the groundbreaking for the construction of the Ksh 275 million Kilifi Central Fish landing site at an old ferry in Kilifi town, Kilifi County, on March 9, 2025, Joho urged fishermen to organise themselves into Beach Management Units (BMUs) if they were to benefit from the project.

“We are bringing you boats that can access the deep seas so that you can bring as much catch as possible, and when we bring the boats, we will have to organize you so that one boat can be given to several groups so that they can go fishing in turns,” he said.

He said that the Kenya Marine Fisheries and Socio-Economic Development (KEMFSED) project was also investing Ksh1 billion to develop fish landing sites in the five coastal counties of Lamu, Kilifi, Tana River, Mombasa and Kwale with the projects aimed at enhancing the management of priority fisheries and increase access to complementary livelihood activities for coastal fishing communities.

“We started by distributing 123 fiber boats, and that changed your lives in one way, but now we want to upgrade to large vessels,” he said.

Governor Gideon Mung’aro, who accompanied Joho together with Kilifi North MP Owen Baya and his Malindi counterpart Amina Mnyazi, said that the deep-sea fishing boats will revolutionise the fishing industry in the area.

“If all the fish in our territorial waters is brought in, then our people will get jobs and uplift their lives through the fish business,” he said.