Category: Loans
New Kenyan Government Releases Controversial Chinese Loan Agreements For Standard Gauge Railway
Kenya's new Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen, rocked the political establishment in Nairobi over the weekend when he released the first details about the controversial multi-billion dollar loan from China to build the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).
Why Kenya Will Struggle to Repay the Chinese Loans for its Standard Gauge Railway
Newly-elected Kenyan President William Ruto's fulfillment of a campaign promise that reversed his predecessor's mandate that cargo from the Port of Mombasa has to be transported via the Standard Gauge Railway instead of trucks may have been smart politically, but it will likely cripple the ...
China’s Lending Will Be Demand-Driven: Ambassador
China will not promote loan-supported projects to the Global South but will be led by recipient country demand. This was one of the takeaways from a recent interview with China’s ambassador to Kenya, Zhou Pingjian.
Kenya Wants to Stretch Rail Loan Repayment Window to 50 Years
Kenya hopes to renegotiate the loan for its Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway to be repayable over fifty years, the country’s incoming Transport Secretary, Kipchumba Murkomen, said during his confirmation hearing this week. “We are choked by loans,” he ...
Kenyan Government Finds Irregularities in Chinese ICT Loan Audit
The Kenyan government can’t account for about $83 million dollars earmarked for a Chinese-funded National Optic Fiber Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) project, according to a new report by the country’s Auditor-General. The A-G says some loan documents for the $175 million tender are missing, with ...
Sorry, Mr. Minister, China Isn’t Going to Finance Your Railway
Nigeria's Transportation Minister Mu'azu Sambo made a remarkable statement during a press conference on Friday. He is apparently still waiting for the China Exim Bank to come through with funding to build a pair of very expensive, multi-billion dollar railways. ...
The Mystery of China’s Interest-Free Loan Cancelation: Connecting the Dots
Amid China's controversial role in debt crises from Sri Lanka to Zambia and beyond, the recent cancelation of 23 interest-free loans to 17 African countries caused a lot of misunderstanding, not least because the Chinese government has still not published official lists ...
Understanding the Significance of China’s Interest-Free Loans Cancelation
By Oyintarelado Moses and Jyhjong Hwang On August 19, 2022, China announced it would waive 23 interest-free loans (IFLs) with maturity by the end of 2021 for 17 unspecified African countries worth an unspecified total amount. This announcement comes as ...
We Need to Talk About Africa’s Whole Debt Problem – Not Just the Chinese Part
This week I participated in a seminar hosted by the South African Institute for International Affairs comparing the on-the-ground experiences of Chinese-led infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia and Africa (watch the event here). Researchers from opposite ends ...
China, Japan Are Kenya’s Top Infrastructure Financiers This Year
China and Japan are collectively financing half a billion dollars worth of Kenyan infrastructure projects in the current fiscal year, more than any other country, according to new data from the National Treasury in Nairobi.