Five years ago, in Mombasa, Kenya, a seaside town and strategically important port, the people celebrated as Kenya’s president inaugurated a new railway. This railway, called the Standard Gauge Railway, was designed, funded, and built by China. President Uhuru Kenyatta proclaimed that the new train would connect the port in Mombasa to the neighboring country of Uganda. This would be extremely beneficial since it would create more jobs and help industrialize Kenya. “This is a very historic moment,” he said to the gathering of Kenyan and Chinese officials. “We should be proud.”
This railway project was initially a part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The trillion dollar project aimed to expand China’s economic and political clout by funding new ports, roads, and railways globally China loaned Kenya $3.2 billion dollars for their railway project. And Kenya wasn’t alone. Between 2010 and 2018, China lent over $150 billion to African nations for projects mainly related to its ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure initiatives.
At the entrance of every single rail car, an image of the Kenyan flag is flanked by the Chinese flag. In 2019, the new railway transported 9 million tons of goods. In July, following a haitus caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, the railway carried more than 19,000 passengers and 421,000 tons of cargo between Nairobi and Mombasa. Kenya currently pays $1 million every month to China’s Africa Star Railway Operation Company to run the railway. Kenya has failed to meet the payment every month since 2017.
The effects of this railway didn’t match up to the original. In fact, the entire project turned into a fiasco. It fostered corruption and became the target of lawsuits, criminal investigations, and resentment from different places. Tony Watima, an economist, referring to the Standard Gauge Railway said “The S.G.R. is an economic, social and fiscal disrupter. The disruption it has created in the Kenyan economy will be felt for years.” Upon hearing of the deal that the Kenyans secured with the Chinese, critics termed the project costly and worried about its debt burden on Kenya.
William Ruto, the vice president, in an interview, acknowledged the public debt of $73.5 billion as of March. “We are hurting from paying the Chinese debt,” he said. Kenya has a GDP of a little over 100 billion dollars. Chinese loans have topped $4.7 billion after the line was expanded in 2015. The debt is increasing.
This railway is also an issue for the current election. The two candidates campaigning to be President Kenyatta’s successor, William Ruto, and Raila Odinga are taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the railways, saying that they will help reassess the operations.
“They said this train was progress, but whose progress is it?” Daniel Tipape, a motorcycle taxi driver said. “Sometimes we just build things for the sake of it.”
Link: https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_kenyas-chinese-built-railway-proves-pricey/6196321.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/07/world/africa/kenya-election-train.html, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/641625157/a-new-chinese-funded-railway-in-kenya-sparks-debt-trap-fears,
This railway project was initially a part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The trillion dollar project aimed to expand China’s economic and political clout by funding new ports, roads, and railways globally China loaned Kenya $3.2 billion dollars for their railway project. And Kenya wasn’t alone. Between 2010 and 2018, China lent over $150 billion to African nations for projects mainly related to its ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure initiatives.
At the entrance of every single rail car, an image of the Kenyan flag is flanked by the Chinese flag. In 2019, the new railway transported 9 million tons of goods. In July, following a haitus caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, the railway carried more than 19,000 passengers and 421,000 tons of cargo between Nairobi and Mombasa. Kenya currently pays $1 million every month to China’s Africa Star Railway Operation Company to run the railway. Kenya has failed to meet the payment every month since 2017.
The effects of this railway didn’t match up to the original. In fact, the entire project turned into a fiasco. It fostered corruption and became the target of lawsuits, criminal investigations, and resentment from different places. Tony Watima, an economist, referring to the Standard Gauge Railway said “The S.G.R. is an economic, social and fiscal disrupter. The disruption it has created in the Kenyan economy will be felt for years.” Upon hearing of the deal that the Kenyans secured with the Chinese, critics termed the project costly and worried about its debt burden on Kenya.
William Ruto, the vice president, in an interview, acknowledged the public debt of $73.5 billion as of March. “We are hurting from paying the Chinese debt,” he said. Kenya has a GDP of a little over 100 billion dollars. Chinese loans have topped $4.7 billion after the line was expanded in 2015. The debt is increasing.
This railway is also an issue for the current election. The two candidates campaigning to be President Kenyatta’s successor, William Ruto, and Raila Odinga are taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the railways, saying that they will help reassess the operations.
“They said this train was progress, but whose progress is it?” Daniel Tipape, a motorcycle taxi driver said. “Sometimes we just build things for the sake of it.”
Link: https://www.voanews.com/a/africa_kenyas-chinese-built-railway-proves-pricey/6196321.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/07/world/africa/kenya-election-train.html, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/641625157/a-new-chinese-funded-railway-in-kenya-sparks-debt-trap-fears,