With reference to the debt Kenya owes the Asian economic powerhouse, China has officially clarified the situation.
Zhou Pingjian, the Chinese ambassador to Kenya, disclosed that only 10% of Kenya’s entire debt is owed to China in a statement that was released on Monday, July 4.
The envoy stated that rumors circulating accusing China of overloading the nation with loans were false and were intended to mislead Kenyans.
He claims that the largest creditors to Kenya are other Western countries.
“Western investors, often in the forms of multilateral financial institutions and commercial creditors, are the largest creditors of African countries such as Kenya. According to the World Bank’s 2022 International Debt Statistics, 28.8 per cent of Africa’s external debt comes form multilateral financial institutions and 41.8 per cent from commercial creditors. Together they account for nearly three-fourths of Africa’s total debt,” Pingjian stated.
Ambassador Pingjian stated that China lends to Kenya and other African nations while respecting their sovereignty and following traditional commercial norms.
The Asian nation added that it only sends assistance in times of need and after being contacted by African authorities, including Kenyan government officials.
China “always respects the aspirations of the African people, and China’s finance to Africa concentrates mostly on infrastructure and manufacturing-related industries to address the real requirements of the continent.
Furthermore, China has never imposed political conditions on debt arrangements, coerced any African nation into borrowing money, or demanded that any African nation pay back its debt. No African nation has ever been forced to mortgage its ports, minerals, or other critical resources due to debt problems.
This comes even as the Members of Parliament increased the public debt ceiling to Ksh10 trillion as a stop-gap measure to allow the next government to borrow Ksh846 billion to plug the budget deficit in the fiscal year starting July 1.
Revealing the data on the projects they have funded, China noted that it has built over 100,000 kilometers of highway, 1,000 bridges, 100 ports, and even schools.
In the country, China has been critical in the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), Nairobi Expressway, Thika Super Highway, and Lake Turkana- Suswa power line transmission among others.
They have also been at the center of maintaining a number of projects in the country. For instance, the Moja Expressway is a subsidiary of China Road and Bridge Corporation(CRBC) has been tasked with operating the Nairobi Expressway.
For SGR operations, Chinese experts worked on the project before surrendering the operations to the Kenyan government.
