The Chinese and Ugandan governments collaborated in what appears to be an effort to jointly refute last month’s Daily Monitor story that falsely claimed the Entebbe Airport would be seized by China as part of a debt default. Ambassador Zhang Lizhong led a donation ceremony on Friday at the airport to hand over $45,000 worth of PPE materials to Transport Minister Fred Byamukama, who also denounced the allegations that China was engaging in “debt trap” lending in Uganda.
Interestingly, Byamukama seemed to endorse the Chinese take on this story that it was outsiders, specifically non-Africans, that are behind the Entebbe airport controversy. “Those who don’t wish African countries to grow well, they keep on making propaganda and formulating stories,” he said presumably alluding to Western countries. He failed to mention that the origin of this entire drama was a Ugandan media outlet that only quoted Ugandan sources.
After the ceremony, Zhang spoke to the press to restate Beijing’s position that the airport is not in danger of being forfeited:
Regarding the specific allegations, I want to say that it is a misreading of the relevant agreement. Actually, this loan agreement is guaranteed by sovereign credit not by anything else — not connected to any asset of Uganda — so it (seizing the airport) will not happen.
As a matter of fact, China has never confiscated any national asset of African countries in history. Even in the extreme cases of default, we always choose debt reduction, debt mitigation, or debt restructuring. We never confiscate any national asset.
So, this allegation is wrong, it’s false, it has no factual basis and I want to say it (seizing the airport) will not happen, it will never happen and this airport will always be in the hands of the Ugandan people, safe and sound.
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