Nairobi — Kenya Ferry Services Limited has requested tenders for the expansion of its Peleleza mooring jetty to accommodate the two 70-metre new ferries.

In an advertisement in the daily papers on Friday, the acting managing director Isaac Kamau has called for interested firms to deposit their tendering proposals at the Likoni mainland offices.

"KFS is a state corporation registered as a private company which is mandated to provide services across the Likoni channel to South Coast and beyond," he says.

The contracted firm will be also required to repair and expand the Likoni ferry landing ramps to provide symmetrical ramp surface and 40-metre sea front landing area.

In a recent interview, the KFS board chairman Joseph Kingi said the envisaged arrival of the two new ferries from Germany would increase their fleet to seven thus congesting the current jetty and necessitating the expansion.

"Before the ferries arrive in the country, we plan to expand the island and mainland ramps to ease landing of our vessels," he added.

The vital link to the South Coast and Tanzania has been a point of acrimonious debate between hotel industry investors and the government.

Frequent breakdowns of the ferries plying the Likoni channel have caused some investors of South Coast to think of relocating elsewhere to save their businesses.

According to tour firms operating there daily ferry delays at the channel have made some of their clients to miss their flights at Moi International Airport.

"This has forced many of us to wake up our clients earlier than normal in the morning to give an allowance for delays at Likoni," says a source which wished not to be named.

The multi-million hotel industry investment with a turn around of billion of shillings is under threat due to the breakdown of ageing ferries that occasion massive losses and cancellations of hotel bookings in the South Coast.

According to the chairman of the umbrella hotel association, the Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers Mr Titus Kangangi, the ferry failures are actually having an even more chilling development: they are causing investor and capital flight from the region.

In a telephone interview with Nation, Mr Kangangi said unless a lasting solution is found, "We shall be strangling the economy and punishing investors who have put in a lot in opening up the South Coast of Mombasa."

The ferries were originally meant to arrive before Christmas, but after a recent delegation visited Germany where they are being built, the arrival dates were shifted to early next year.

With the call for tenders now appearing in the newspapers, residents of Mombasa might get to see the ferries finally.