The government yesterday assured Ugandans that Entebbe International Airport has not been surrendered out to China, or any lender, in exchange for cash.
In a statement issued last night, the Information Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi, who is the government spokesman, said "[the] government of Uganda would like to make it categorically clear that the allegation that Entebbe International Airport has been given away for cash is false".
"[The] government cannot give away a national asset like an airport. This has not happened and it will not happen," he noted.
The assurances, which followed a separate rebuttal by China’s embassy in Kampala, follow this newspaper’s lead story last Friday, one of whose two headlines read, Uganda surrenders airport for China cash.
The exposé explored growing unease of Ugandan technocrats over Beijing’s refusal to amend some clauses of the $200m (Shs713b) agreement to build a new terminal and expand runways and new cargo and fuel centres at Entebbe, Uganda’s only international airport.
The project is being bankrolled by China Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and the loan, according to government Spokesman Baryomunsi, "is guaranteed by Uganda’s sovereign credit as a public debt charged on the Consolidated Account in accordance with Article 160 of Uganda’s Constitution".
"The loan terms provide a grace period of seven years and the period ends in December 2022. The loan repayment is to be made in 20 years at an interest rate of two percent; these terms are favourable and should not cause any concern," he noted in yesterday’s statement, adding, "The allegation that the airport has been mortgaged to China’s government is not only malicious, but a pack of lies aimed at causing disaffection among Ugandans."
The content of the Daily Monitor story has not been impugned, but the government, China and aviation regulator, Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), have separately argued that the title was misleading and likely to stir disaffection.
In a statement last Friday, an unnamed spokesperson for China’s embassy in Kampala characterised the controversy generated by some of clauses impugned by Ugandan officials as without "factual basis and ill-intended".
In a four-page response to a story first published by this newspaper last Thursday, and republished around the world with varying titles, China’s embassy in Kampala noted that the preferential loan extended by EXIM Bank was "guaranteed by Uganda’s sovereign credit, not by anything else." The 2015 Entebbe expansion loan agreement, like others before and after it, were inked between the two countries "voluntarily… […]