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The Kenyan government is struggling to respond to the revelations that a multibillion-dollar contract with China could endanger its sovereignty, according to The Daily Nation.
Details of the loan for the Standard Gauge Railway, Kenya's largest infrastructure project since independence, emerged on Sunday when The Nation released extracts from a 2014 contract between the Export-Import Bank of China and the Republic of Kenya .
Beijing's infrastructure business typically takes place in secret, and The Nation's report offers a rare glimpse of how China structures the terms of its loans.
Now, according to the newspaper, the government has canceled planned presences and planned emergency meetings to determine the best way to navigate the latest in a series of harmful reports on the financing, construction and operation of the SGR.
Sovereignty in question
The main concern is the language that describes in detail the extent of the activities that Kenya must lose if it is imposed on the loan. According to an excerpt quoted by The Nation, Kenya's largest independent newspaper, "Neither the borrower (Kenya) nor any of its assets are entitled to any right of immunity on the basis of sovereignty".
The contract also stipulates that Kenya should use Chinese "goods, technologies and services" in the construction and operation of the railway, and a confidentiality clause prohibits the Kenyan government from divulging the terms of the contract without Beijing's written consent.
The excerpts provide some of the most tangible evidence to date that Beijing can engage in what critics, including the United States, call debt-trap diplomacy – the loan designed to force countries to deliver lands, minerals or strategic assets when they fail. .
The nation did not disclose how it acquired the contract, nor how it determined its authenticity.
But the language in the document is closely related to the VOA contracts discovered for projects related to the Belt and Road Initiative, China's global infrastructure plan for billions of dollars, in Serbia, Kyrgyzstan and Guyana, suggesting the terms of the Kenyan loan, by the clauses confiscation and confidentiality. the clauses on the use of Chinese sellers could reflect Bejing's lending practices throughout Africa and beyond.
Charles Kanjama, president of the Law Society of Kenya of the Nairobi Branch, told The Nation that some features of the contract, such as the privacy clause, are typical. He raised concerns, however, in another language specifying that all disputes relating to the contract must be arbitrated in China.
Since its launch in 2017, the SGR has been marked by accusations of corruption, racism and mismanagement. Both Kenyan and Chinese officials have been subjected to criminal charges.
Even before the project was interrupted, analysts raised concerns about the cost of the project and design decisions that led the track into one of the country's largest national parks.
I will continue to borrow & # 39;
At the end of last month, President Uhuru Kenyatta rejected accusations that the Chinese loan has damaged the country.
"China is not trying to colonize us, but it has understood us to our point of necessity," Kenyatta told a round table of journalists, according to The Star, another Kenyan newspaper.
"We are ahead of the payment program, so Kenyans have to ignore any propaganda that is being promoted, and I will continue to borrow, but I will develop," added Kenyatta.
Despite ongoing controversies, some experts say the railroad could still be positive for a country that needs infrastructure to support its long-term development.
"The normal gauge railway is a real turning point," said VOA Irene Sun, author of "The Next Factory of the World," a book about Chinese production in Africa.
Before the SGR, Sun added, the two largest cities in Kenya, Nairobi and Mombasa, were connected by poor roads and an unpredictable 10-15 hour journey.
"Now you have a railroad where you can get on a train and you can get to the other side in five hours," said Sun, associate associate of the McKinsey & Company consulting group.
"This is a change of play for the movement of people, but I think it is perhaps more important for the movement of goods".
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