Friendship: Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Beijing on May 15, 2017 . (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) In our second of a four-part series, we look at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s efforts to secure more Chinese funding for the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway and the attendant blessings and curses that came with billions from Beijing
In April 2019, a year after President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga made a truce with the famous handshake, the two travelled to Beijing, China, with great expectations.
They were not as enthusiastic when they returned.
It was during the tenure of retired President Mwai Kibaki that the Chinese dragon landed in Kenya, puffing out a flame of billions which fired up a group of mega infrastructural projects starting with the Thika Super Highway. READ MORE
But the Chinese billion also come with a fair share of problems, especially in President Kenyatta’s first term when even more loans flowed in from Beijing.
Suddenly, Kenya was grappling with a heavy debt burden, a deluge of cheap imports that enfeebled local manufacturing firms, wheeler-dealership and, in some instances, cases of discrimination that whipped up xenophobic feelings against the Chinese.
Finally, Beijing realised that there was another side to the billions it had disbursed to Kenya, and Africa generally.
Although the Kenyan delegation had left with pomp and secured a number of deals in China’s capital city, it sneaked back into the country a crestfallen lot.
They had missed out on the main prize.
There had been reports that when the Kenyan delegation left for the Infrastructure Summit in Beijing, they intended to sign a Sh368 billion financing for the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Naivasha to Kisumu.
But the Chinese government refused to loosen its purse strings, pointing to a major shift in relations between China and Kenya.It was the Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia who, in a press conference while in Beijing gave the clearest hint that suddenly it was not business as usual for China.“All documents are ready,” Macharia told reporters about the contract, adding that after engaging the Chinese Government it was agreed that a feasibility study of the SGR be done first.“Not just for the Naivasha to Kisumu but also all the way from Mombasa to Kisumu so that we can establish its commercial viability,” said Macharia in the press briefing.Of all President Uhuru Kenyatta’s flagship projects, it is […]
