The Kenyan government, like a lot of African governments, is struggling to find the right balance between continuing to pay for badly-needed new infrastructure while at the same time servicing its enormous debts for older projects — many of which are now so-called “white elephants” that were never built or used.

The situation has been compounded by the fact that once abundant Chinese financing is, for the most part, no longer available and the Treasury instead is forced to either take on more domestic debt or go to the bond markets where interest rates tend to be higher.