Deliberate push to impoverish Coast more political than legal

An aerial view of the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Nairobi. [File, Standard]

Mombasa residents must be wondering what they have done wrong to justify the tragic and immense hollowing out of their city by the Jubilee regime. I don’t think there is a precedent anywhere in the world, where the state has deliberately impoverished a region to enrich even more prosperous regions—in this case Nairobi and Naivasha--as the Jubilee regime is doing with Mombasa at present.

It smacks of discrimination, contempt and perhaps open greed that will certainly have unintended and disastrous consequences such as the recent crime waves in Bamburi. Worse, the continued impoverishment of Mombasa makes it a fertile breeding ground for Al-Shabaab.