Go lie to your Maasai neighbours please those air polluting boxes.. Haha.. the difference is very clear. Kenya is still superior.
Cost comparison SGR Kenya vs SGR Tanzania
Cost comparison SGR Kenya vs SGR Tanzania
- Thread starter Geza Ulole
- Start date
asvptx
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- Jun 26, 2018
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Tanzanian SGR is a CLASS 2 type railway. Compare that with Kenya's which is CLASS 1.
I think this closes down the debate of cost comparisons between the two. Obviously, a superior class will cost much more.
Tanzanian and Ethiopian railways are both CLASS 2 [emoji15]
I think this closes down the debate of cost comparisons between the two. Obviously, a superior class will cost much more.
Tanzanian and Ethiopian railways are both CLASS 2 [emoji15]
Geza Ulole
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And yet conducts a garimoshi moving at 70km/h!
Bantugbro
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- Feb 22, 2009
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Geza Ulole
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Kenya and China: Why we may not have a friend in China
Sep. 08, 2018, 12:00 am
By GODFREY K. SANG @godfreysang
Anyone with a problem with alcohol, considers whoever buys them more booze without judging them, as a good friend. But are they? Africa is like an alcoholic who has discovered a friend who will splash before them lots of alcohol and asking no questions. And China is probably fully aware that its debt-driven diplomacy is only driving Africa further into dependency. Chinese money makes it harder for Africa to make even the smallest things such as paper clips, ear-buds or even toothpicks. All are from China. We now have absolutely no incentive to produce these things. We are not just addicted to Chinese money; we are also desperately losing our ability to hunt, like a fed lion in a zoo that will never survive in the wild.
PATH OF SELF-DESTRUCTION
Jonah Kimaiyo, a confirmed alcoholic from my village, abandoned his church-wedded wife and moved in with the woman who ran the local shebeen - if only to get close to his favourite drink directly from the source. And she supplied it unreservedly. To finance his habit, Jonah put his ancestral land on sale to finance his habit and it was not long before his family was homeless.
Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously stated, “…China’s approach … encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty denying them their long-term self-sustaining growth.”
Indeed, Sri Lanka has lost its Hambatota port, which it constructed using a facility from China. It soon discovered it could not finance its loan and it now belongs to China for 99 years. Closer home, we have Djibouti, which is about to lose its port due to toxic debt.
The Maldives and also Pakistan are mired in Chinese debts and may not be smiling for long. Also in deep trouble is Montenegro, the tiny Eastern-European nation, which took in Chinese loans to build a highway and it is having trouble repaying it. In Djibouti, China now has a military base and due to its debt, there is talk of a Chinese company taking over the running of the port. Our Lamu Port could just go the same way.
DESTROYING AFRICA
If you have watched Prof Ali Mazrui’s epic documentary ‘Africa- A Triple Heritage’, you will probably remember his great analogy of how European colonialism destroyed Africa’s ability to make its own things. He gives the example of the Balunda, the Baluba and the Basanga people of what is today the DR Congo, who used clay produced by termites to smelt copper from which they made all manner of farming implements, weaponry and even decorations and money. The coming of Western imperialism through predatory capitalism and appropriation of resources killed local industries. Mazrui says, “…and then the Europeans came. Did they want to learn from the technology they found here? Oh no! At least the Baluba and the Balunda had consulted the technology of the termites and benefited from it. But European technology was more arrogant more self-confident and less compromising. It abolished the old technological order and in its wake it left new forms of desolation in Africa.”
Closer home, it was in Britain’s interest that we bought a jembe forged in Birmingham rather than to make one here. China is today the biggest producer of iron implements, sold so cheaply thereby robbing Africans of their incentive to make them. We, like the tame lion, cannot hunt anymore.
Today, you cannot produce anything in Kenya which the Chinese don’t already make, or make better and cheaper. The balance of trade is heavily in their favour. Then they will happily extend loans to develop the infrastructure that will make it easier for their goods to come, and which will also increase the efficiency at which Africa’s resources will get to China.
This is at least the spirit behind the famous Belt and Road Initiative. China is resource hungry while Africa is resource rich. Yet even then, Africa is making little progress in poverty eradication, despite being arguably the world’s richest continent by resources. Chinese concerns are busy around appropriative industries, which further perpetuates the phenomenon that Mazrui had observed in 1986 when he asked rhetorically, “And yet the digging continues: Dig, Dig, Dig, is it for wealth? Or is it for the collective burial of a people?” If Prof Mazrui were to comment on this, he may have asked if the ‘Belt’ was meant to collectively bind a people.
CHINA’S PATH TO MODERNITY
It was not an easy path for China to get where it is. Until the turn of the 20th century, China was under the firm grip of feudal lords and dynastic imperial rulers who were out of touch with the needs of the people. Then the revolution of 1911 happened and the Emperor was overthrown and modern China was born.
Ideological differences plunged the young nation into conflict and the vagaries of both wars had a devastating effect on the nation. But in 1949, Mao Zedong triumphed over Chiang Kai-shek and ushered in a Socialist revolution that emphasized on self-reliance. By this time, China was backward, poor and hungry. I dare say that Kenya, under colonial rule, was doing much better than China at this time. Chairman Mao got to work, and redistributed land and socialised agriculture. He created cooperatives and collectivised production and all private property. He also embarked on ambitious industrialisation projects and to enhance localised industrialisation, ordered that each of the collectives produce steel under a programme designed to ‘overtake England and catch up with America.’ Every metal item was smelted albeit crudely and even though the product was not of much use, they were learning something.
After much fumbling, they began to get it right. Industrialising China was now a bottom-up approach and soon they were producing goods at very low costs, which were exported. In between these developments were grave policy errors and mistakes that cost lots of suffering. The long story short, China was soon making everything the world could use and exports began to make the country rich. The cost of production was also very low; soon every international producer was trooping in to China to set up production plants further aiding its growth.
CHINA TODAY
Today China is effectively the world’s largest economy by any standard and it is standing at the cusp of being the global superpower its founders dreamt it would be. If it began its grand march in 1949, then it will also take the record of having developed in a much shorter period than what it took its rivals in the West — America, Britain, Germany and France — to get to where they are. Today it is awash with cash and lots more to spare and which it is ‘investing’ in Africa entering a continent the Western powers were turning its back to.
Most of the infrastructural development is carried out by Chinese firms using Chinese capital, equipment and to some level, labour. One of the major criticism of this approach is that little, if any, technological transfer is taking place and this perpetuates not just technological but financial dependency. China prefers to work with its own firms and banks to execute projects rather than do so with local firms or even banks. During the Beijing 2018 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced a $60 billion package for Africa and stated that 25 per cent of the amount will be interest free. He immediately came under international criticism for exacerbating Africa’s indebtedness and slowly edging it into a debt abyss that it may not leave.
If you are a parent, you know that if you give children everything they want, they will never make much of themselves. They will continue on the path of dependency through their lives and you better be there for them until they grow old. No matter how much money you have, it is always a good idea to make children go to work and earn their keep.
Photos of US President Barack Obama’s daughter, Sasha, working at a fast-food restaurant, did the rounds on social media sometime back. This is despite her coming from an extremely wealthy family. No matter how much money you have, your children, brothers and sisters, must go to work. And they should not be choosy. Supervise them and let them do mistakes until they get it right. China is Africa’s big brother who became wealthy. And he prefers to reduce Africa’s capacity to work by giving them easy money. None of the Chinese loans are helping say in import substitution. We will still buy clothing pegs from China and we will never make them locally.
CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY
Even though it firmly believes in non-interference in foreign matters, its desire for global dominance is undeniable. It realises that to drive up global dominance, it must secure raw materials for its resource-thirsty industries and maximise its wealth. Towards this, China is building global infrastructure in order to ease the flow of resources (raw materials) to itself and finished products to the rest of the world. This informed the formation of the One Road One Belt initiative better known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Although it is recent in formulation, the BRI is only building on longtime Chinese development strategy. It offers many nations money, asking very few questions in sharp contrast to the more stringent World Bank and IMF conditionality-laden lending. It soon became the darling of debt-dependent nations including Kenya, which quickly gained an appetite for Chinese loans. To be fair, the Chinese do offer conditions, like special taxes for our SGR and in some cases, rather absurd ones.
ABSURD CONDITIONS
For instance, you must never recognise Taiwan as a nation except as a (renegade) province of China. You must also make sure that the Dalai Lama does not ever set foot on your soil. Kenya very quickly obliged to these conditions even denying the Dalai Lama a chance to visit the Maasai Mara on holiday in 2007. In fact, the ease of accepting such drivel conditions is in itself a measure of our dependency on Chinese goodies.
No nation on earth should be told who to allow as a visitor or have diplomatic ties with. America is notorious for denying others association with her foes (such as Cuba or Iran) but if we insist (like when we imported doctors from Cuba), they will not really mind. Kenya for instance cannot import Taiwanese doctors without risking a major spat with Beijing. This is despite Taiwan having engaged with Africa for a very long time. As we speak, only the Kingdom of eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is Taiwan’s only friend in Africa. It is hosts Taiwan’s only diplomatic footprint on the continent and needless to say, King Mswati III was not invited to Beijing.
Kenya and China: Why we may not have a friend in China
MY TAKE
A neighbour shoping a frustration with a povu after not been granted SGR loan.
Sep. 08, 2018, 12:00 am
By GODFREY K. SANG @godfreysang
Anyone with a problem with alcohol, considers whoever buys them more booze without judging them, as a good friend. But are they? Africa is like an alcoholic who has discovered a friend who will splash before them lots of alcohol and asking no questions. And China is probably fully aware that its debt-driven diplomacy is only driving Africa further into dependency. Chinese money makes it harder for Africa to make even the smallest things such as paper clips, ear-buds or even toothpicks. All are from China. We now have absolutely no incentive to produce these things. We are not just addicted to Chinese money; we are also desperately losing our ability to hunt, like a fed lion in a zoo that will never survive in the wild.
PATH OF SELF-DESTRUCTION
Jonah Kimaiyo, a confirmed alcoholic from my village, abandoned his church-wedded wife and moved in with the woman who ran the local shebeen - if only to get close to his favourite drink directly from the source. And she supplied it unreservedly. To finance his habit, Jonah put his ancestral land on sale to finance his habit and it was not long before his family was homeless.
Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously stated, “…China’s approach … encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty denying them their long-term self-sustaining growth.”
Indeed, Sri Lanka has lost its Hambatota port, which it constructed using a facility from China. It soon discovered it could not finance its loan and it now belongs to China for 99 years. Closer home, we have Djibouti, which is about to lose its port due to toxic debt.
The Maldives and also Pakistan are mired in Chinese debts and may not be smiling for long. Also in deep trouble is Montenegro, the tiny Eastern-European nation, which took in Chinese loans to build a highway and it is having trouble repaying it. In Djibouti, China now has a military base and due to its debt, there is talk of a Chinese company taking over the running of the port. Our Lamu Port could just go the same way.
DESTROYING AFRICA
If you have watched Prof Ali Mazrui’s epic documentary ‘Africa- A Triple Heritage’, you will probably remember his great analogy of how European colonialism destroyed Africa’s ability to make its own things. He gives the example of the Balunda, the Baluba and the Basanga people of what is today the DR Congo, who used clay produced by termites to smelt copper from which they made all manner of farming implements, weaponry and even decorations and money. The coming of Western imperialism through predatory capitalism and appropriation of resources killed local industries. Mazrui says, “…and then the Europeans came. Did they want to learn from the technology they found here? Oh no! At least the Baluba and the Balunda had consulted the technology of the termites and benefited from it. But European technology was more arrogant more self-confident and less compromising. It abolished the old technological order and in its wake it left new forms of desolation in Africa.”
Closer home, it was in Britain’s interest that we bought a jembe forged in Birmingham rather than to make one here. China is today the biggest producer of iron implements, sold so cheaply thereby robbing Africans of their incentive to make them. We, like the tame lion, cannot hunt anymore.
Today, you cannot produce anything in Kenya which the Chinese don’t already make, or make better and cheaper. The balance of trade is heavily in their favour. Then they will happily extend loans to develop the infrastructure that will make it easier for their goods to come, and which will also increase the efficiency at which Africa’s resources will get to China.
This is at least the spirit behind the famous Belt and Road Initiative. China is resource hungry while Africa is resource rich. Yet even then, Africa is making little progress in poverty eradication, despite being arguably the world’s richest continent by resources. Chinese concerns are busy around appropriative industries, which further perpetuates the phenomenon that Mazrui had observed in 1986 when he asked rhetorically, “And yet the digging continues: Dig, Dig, Dig, is it for wealth? Or is it for the collective burial of a people?” If Prof Mazrui were to comment on this, he may have asked if the ‘Belt’ was meant to collectively bind a people.
CHINA’S PATH TO MODERNITY
It was not an easy path for China to get where it is. Until the turn of the 20th century, China was under the firm grip of feudal lords and dynastic imperial rulers who were out of touch with the needs of the people. Then the revolution of 1911 happened and the Emperor was overthrown and modern China was born.
Ideological differences plunged the young nation into conflict and the vagaries of both wars had a devastating effect on the nation. But in 1949, Mao Zedong triumphed over Chiang Kai-shek and ushered in a Socialist revolution that emphasized on self-reliance. By this time, China was backward, poor and hungry. I dare say that Kenya, under colonial rule, was doing much better than China at this time. Chairman Mao got to work, and redistributed land and socialised agriculture. He created cooperatives and collectivised production and all private property. He also embarked on ambitious industrialisation projects and to enhance localised industrialisation, ordered that each of the collectives produce steel under a programme designed to ‘overtake England and catch up with America.’ Every metal item was smelted albeit crudely and even though the product was not of much use, they were learning something.
After much fumbling, they began to get it right. Industrialising China was now a bottom-up approach and soon they were producing goods at very low costs, which were exported. In between these developments were grave policy errors and mistakes that cost lots of suffering. The long story short, China was soon making everything the world could use and exports began to make the country rich. The cost of production was also very low; soon every international producer was trooping in to China to set up production plants further aiding its growth.
CHINA TODAY
Today China is effectively the world’s largest economy by any standard and it is standing at the cusp of being the global superpower its founders dreamt it would be. If it began its grand march in 1949, then it will also take the record of having developed in a much shorter period than what it took its rivals in the West — America, Britain, Germany and France — to get to where they are. Today it is awash with cash and lots more to spare and which it is ‘investing’ in Africa entering a continent the Western powers were turning its back to.
Most of the infrastructural development is carried out by Chinese firms using Chinese capital, equipment and to some level, labour. One of the major criticism of this approach is that little, if any, technological transfer is taking place and this perpetuates not just technological but financial dependency. China prefers to work with its own firms and banks to execute projects rather than do so with local firms or even banks. During the Beijing 2018 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced a $60 billion package for Africa and stated that 25 per cent of the amount will be interest free. He immediately came under international criticism for exacerbating Africa’s indebtedness and slowly edging it into a debt abyss that it may not leave.
If you are a parent, you know that if you give children everything they want, they will never make much of themselves. They will continue on the path of dependency through their lives and you better be there for them until they grow old. No matter how much money you have, it is always a good idea to make children go to work and earn their keep.
Photos of US President Barack Obama’s daughter, Sasha, working at a fast-food restaurant, did the rounds on social media sometime back. This is despite her coming from an extremely wealthy family. No matter how much money you have, your children, brothers and sisters, must go to work. And they should not be choosy. Supervise them and let them do mistakes until they get it right. China is Africa’s big brother who became wealthy. And he prefers to reduce Africa’s capacity to work by giving them easy money. None of the Chinese loans are helping say in import substitution. We will still buy clothing pegs from China and we will never make them locally.
CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY
Even though it firmly believes in non-interference in foreign matters, its desire for global dominance is undeniable. It realises that to drive up global dominance, it must secure raw materials for its resource-thirsty industries and maximise its wealth. Towards this, China is building global infrastructure in order to ease the flow of resources (raw materials) to itself and finished products to the rest of the world. This informed the formation of the One Road One Belt initiative better known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Although it is recent in formulation, the BRI is only building on longtime Chinese development strategy. It offers many nations money, asking very few questions in sharp contrast to the more stringent World Bank and IMF conditionality-laden lending. It soon became the darling of debt-dependent nations including Kenya, which quickly gained an appetite for Chinese loans. To be fair, the Chinese do offer conditions, like special taxes for our SGR and in some cases, rather absurd ones.
ABSURD CONDITIONS
For instance, you must never recognise Taiwan as a nation except as a (renegade) province of China. You must also make sure that the Dalai Lama does not ever set foot on your soil. Kenya very quickly obliged to these conditions even denying the Dalai Lama a chance to visit the Maasai Mara on holiday in 2007. In fact, the ease of accepting such drivel conditions is in itself a measure of our dependency on Chinese goodies.
No nation on earth should be told who to allow as a visitor or have diplomatic ties with. America is notorious for denying others association with her foes (such as Cuba or Iran) but if we insist (like when we imported doctors from Cuba), they will not really mind. Kenya for instance cannot import Taiwanese doctors without risking a major spat with Beijing. This is despite Taiwan having engaged with Africa for a very long time. As we speak, only the Kingdom of eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is Taiwan’s only friend in Africa. It is hosts Taiwan’s only diplomatic footprint on the continent and needless to say, King Mswati III was not invited to Beijing.
Kenya and China: Why we may not have a friend in China
MY TAKE
A neighbour shoping a frustration with a povu after not been granted SGR loan.
Geza Ulole
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 31, 2009
- 65,136
- 91,917
- Thread starter
- #1,306
A locomotive at the construction site of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 23, 2018. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)MORE
CHINESE REGIME
DONATE SHARE
Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
BY FRANK FANG, EPOCH TIMES
September 6, 2018 Updated: September 6, 2018
The 2018 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation held in Beijing this week ended with much hype as Beijing pledged $60 billion in aid and loans to African nations. But behind the fanfare are social and economic problems that African countries face as a result of Chinese investment—as in the case of Kenya, which is seeking to modernize its infrastructure even as the nation’s debt load is ballooning.
With Kenya’s public debt reaching about $50.6 billion, President Uhuru Kenyatta has been criticized for irresponsibly borrowing from Beijing, according to a Sept. 5 article by Kenya’s largest independent newspaper, Daily Nation. As a way to ease some of that debt, Kenyatta, while in Beijing, asked China to split the $3.8 billion cost for building the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) into 50 percent loans and 50 percent grants, Daily Nation reported.
If China is willing to foot half of the bill for the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in the form of grants, Kenyatta said, taxpayers in his country would only need to pay for half of it, or $1.9 billion.
Many Kenyans consider China the biggest threat to the country’s economic development, according to another recent article by Daily Nation, citing a survey conducted between July 25 and Aug. 2 by market researcher Ipsos Synovate.
Among those polled, 26 percent see China as a threat to Kenya’s development, while 38 percent believe the relationship between Kenya and China will lead to job losses. Another 25 percent say that the Kenyan economy will be hurt by imports of cheap Chinese goods, while 8 percent believe that China’s influence will foster corruption in Kenya.
Corruption is one of the concerns voiced in a report presented at a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing on Africa and global human rights held on March 7.
The report indicates that some contracts signed between China and top officials in the Kenyan government are shady, greased with bribes and other antecedents, such as all-expenses-paid shopping trips to China and scholarships given to Kenyan elite.
“China plays a big part in corrupting leaders to gain business advantages through corruption within Africa, especially in Kenya,” the paper stated.
Debt Trap
Kenya’s debt to China has ballooned in recent years, according to Kenyan media. Debt owed to China stood at $4.75 billion in 2017, an increase of 52.8 percent from the previous year, and a seven-fold increase from 2013, according to an Aug. 21 article by Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke, citing data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. That amount figures to grow as Kenya moves to the second part of phase two of the SGR.
The mounting debt has some Kenyan experts worried. Jaindi Kisero, a former managing editor with Nation Media Group, the largest independent media house in East and Central Africa, warned that the country could fall into a debt trap, much like what has already happened to Sri Lanka, in an opinion article he penned in the Daily Nation that was published in May.
“The Chinese will readily offer you infrastructure loans, but you will only start feeling the pinch when the time for servicing the debt comes calling—and you realize that your economy is not raising enough dollars to repay it,” wrote Kisero. He added that Kenya must pay back about $258 million in debt to China in 2018, and about $814 million next year, citing data from Kenya’s National Treasury.
Kisero concluded, “Kenya must not be left to suffer the indignity of the Sri Lankans.”
Sri Lanka handed over control of its main southern port located in Hambantota in December 2017, after China financed an OBOR project there. Sri Lanka was unable to pay back the $6 billion in loans and, thus, converted the debt into equity.
Eric Wamanji, a public relations and communication expert, in an opinion article published in the Daily Nation in August, warned of China’s loans, not only for Kenya, but for other developing nations as well.
“China is a calculating financier. Most of its loans are collateralized against strategic assets like minerals or seaports,” Wamanji wrote. In Congo, for example, China has seized mining rights to copper and cobalt deposits—key materials for developing China’s new vehicles industry—after years of investment in the central African nation.
“When states default on the loans, this affords China the liberty to seize assets, and even territory, in lieu of the repayments,” Wamanji added.
The SGR is part of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road), Beijing’s massive investment initiative with countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Kenya is considered a strategic point in the maritime trade route laid out in OBOR plans, which runs from China through Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Greece, and finally, to Italy.
To push forward its OBOR initiative, Beijing has claimed that its projects will create jobs for locals where projects are being built. Yet, the contrary is often true.
Public Dissent
In October 2014, Kenyan youth blocked a section of a highway in Voi, a town in Taita-Taveta County in southern Kenya, to protest against China Roads and Bridges Company. The Chinese firm, contracted by Beijing, had hired foreigners instead of locals to build a section of the SGR, according to Daily Nation.
The same company was also the target of another protest in the same town in May 2017, with local youth protesting hiring discrimination against locals, according to Daily Nation.
Phase one of the SGR, a roughly 300-mile-long railway connecting Kenya’s capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa, was built at a cost of $3.2 billion with Chinese financing and inaugurated in June 2017, according toReuters. China’s state-run Export-Import Bank of China paid for 90 percent of the cost, and the Kenyan government paid the remaining 10 percent.
The first part of phase two, a roughly 75-mile railway linking Nairobi to Naivasha, a town located northwest of Nairobi, is currently under construction.
Mombasa eventually will serve as a trade gateway in East Africa, as the SGR will link to railways in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The second part of phase two—at a cost of $3.8 billion—is a railway linking Naivasha and Kisumu, a port city on Lake Victoria, a body of water bordered by three nations: Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
Geza Ulole
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 31, 2009
- 65,136
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- #1,307
A locomotive at the construction site of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 23, 2018. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)MORE
CHINESE REGIME
DONATE SHARE
Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
BY FRANK FANG, EPOCH TIMES
September 6, 2018 Updated: September 6, 2018
The 2018 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation held in Beijing this week ended with much hype as Beijing pledged $60 billion in aid and loans to African nations. But behind the fanfare are social and economic problems that African countries face as a result of Chinese investment—as in the case of Kenya, which is seeking to modernize its infrastructure even as the nation’s debt load is ballooning.
With Kenya’s public debt reaching about $50.6 billion, President Uhuru Kenyatta has been criticized for irresponsibly borrowing from Beijing, according to a Sept. 5 article by Kenya’s largest independent newspaper, Daily Nation. As a way to ease some of that debt, Kenyatta, while in Beijing, asked China to split the $3.8 billion cost for building the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) into 50 percent loans and 50 percent grants, Daily Nation reported.
If China is willing to foot half of the bill for the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in the form of grants, Kenyatta said, taxpayers in his country would only need to pay for half of it, or $1.9 billion.
Many Kenyans consider China the biggest threat to the country’s economic development, according to another recent article by Daily Nation, citing a survey conducted between July 25 and Aug. 2 by market researcher Ipsos Synovate.
Among those polled, 26 percent see China as a threat to Kenya’s development, while 38 percent believe the relationship between Kenya and China will lead to job losses. Another 25 percent say that the Kenyan economy will be hurt by imports of cheap Chinese goods, while 8 percent believe that China’s influence will foster corruption in Kenya.
Corruption is one of the concerns voiced in a report presented at a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing on Africa and global human rights held on March 7.
The report indicates that some contracts signed between China and top officials in the Kenyan government are shady, greased with bribes and other antecedents, such as all-expenses-paid shopping trips to China and scholarships given to Kenyan elite.
“China plays a big part in corrupting leaders to gain business advantages through corruption within Africa, especially in Kenya,” the paper stated.
Debt Trap
Kenya’s debt to China has ballooned in recent years, according to Kenyan media. Debt owed to China stood at $4.75 billion in 2017, an increase of 52.8 percent from the previous year, and a seven-fold increase from 2013, according to an Aug. 21 article by Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke, citing data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. That amount figures to grow as Kenya moves to the second part of phase two of the SGR.
The mounting debt has some Kenyan experts worried. Jaindi Kisero, a former managing editor with Nation Media Group, the largest independent media house in East and Central Africa, warned that the country could fall into a debt trap, much like what has already happened to Sri Lanka, in an opinion article he penned in the Daily Nation that was published in May.
“The Chinese will readily offer you infrastructure loans, but you will only start feeling the pinch when the time for servicing the debt comes calling—and you realize that your economy is not raising enough dollars to repay it,” wrote Kisero. He added that Kenya must pay back about $258 million in debt to China in 2018, and about $814 million next year, citing data from Kenya’s National Treasury.
Kisero concluded, “Kenya must not be left to suffer the indignity of the Sri Lankans.”
Sri Lanka handed over control of its main southern port located in Hambantota in December 2017, after China financed an OBOR project there. Sri Lanka was unable to pay back the $6 billion in loans and, thus, converted the debt into equity.
Eric Wamanji, a public relations and communication expert, in an opinion article published in the Daily Nation in August, warned of China’s loans, not only for Kenya, but for other developing nations as well.
“China is a calculating financier. Most of its loans are collateralized against strategic assets like minerals or seaports,” Wamanji wrote. In Congo, for example, China has seized mining rights to copper and cobalt deposits—key materials for developing China’s new vehicles industry—after years of investment in the central African nation.
“When states default on the loans, this affords China the liberty to seize assets, and even territory, in lieu of the repayments,” Wamanji added.
The SGR is part of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road), Beijing’s massive investment initiative with countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Kenya is considered a strategic point in the maritime trade route laid out in OBOR plans, which runs from China through Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Greece, and finally, to Italy.
To push forward its OBOR initiative, Beijing has claimed that its projects will create jobs for locals where projects are being built. Yet, the contrary is often true.
Public Dissent
In October 2014, Kenyan youth blocked a section of a highway in Voi, a town in Taita-Taveta County in southern Kenya, to protest against China Roads and Bridges Company. The Chinese firm, contracted by Beijing, had hired foreigners instead of locals to build a section of the SGR, according to Daily Nation.
The same company was also the target of another protest in the same town in May 2017, with local youth protesting hiring discrimination against locals, according to Daily Nation.
Phase one of the SGR, a roughly 300-mile-long railway connecting Kenya’s capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa, was built at a cost of $3.2 billion with Chinese financing and inaugurated in June 2017, according toReuters. China’s state-run Export-Import Bank of China paid for 90 percent of the cost, and the Kenyan government paid the remaining 10 percent.
The first part of phase two, a roughly 75-mile railway linking Nairobi to Naivasha, a town located northwest of Nairobi, is currently under construction.
Mombasa eventually will serve as a trade gateway in East Africa, as the SGR will link to railways in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The second part of phase two—at a cost of $3.8 billion—is a railway linking Naivasha and Kisumu, a port city on Lake Victoria, a body of water bordered by three nations: Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
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A locomotive at the construction site of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 23, 2018. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)MORE
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Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
BY FRANK FANG, EPOCH TIMES
September 6, 2018 Updated: September 6, 2018
The 2018 Forum on China–Africa Cooperation held in Beijing this week ended with much hype as Beijing pledged $60 billion in aid and loans to African nations. But behind the fanfare are social and economic problems that African countries face as a result of Chinese investment—as in the case of Kenya, which is seeking to modernize its infrastructure even as the nation’s debt load is ballooning.
With Kenya’s public debt reaching about $50.6 billion, President Uhuru Kenyatta has been criticized for irresponsibly borrowing from Beijing, according to a Sept. 5 article by Kenya’s largest independent newspaper, Daily Nation. As a way to ease some of that debt, Kenyatta, while in Beijing, asked China to split the $3.8 billion cost for building the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) into 50 percent loans and 50 percent grants, Daily Nation reported.
If China is willing to foot half of the bill for the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in the form of grants, Kenyatta said, taxpayers in his country would only need to pay for half of it, or $1.9 billion.
Many Kenyans consider China the biggest threat to the country’s economic development, according to another recent article by Daily Nation, citing a survey conducted between July 25 and Aug. 2 by market researcher Ipsos Synovate.
Among those polled, 26 percent see China as a threat to Kenya’s development, while 38 percent believe the relationship between Kenya and China will lead to job losses. Another 25 percent say that the Kenyan economy will be hurt by imports of cheap Chinese goods, while 8 percent believe that China’s influence will foster corruption in Kenya.
Corruption is one of the concerns voiced in a report presented at a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing on Africa and global human rights held on March 7.
The report indicates that some contracts signed between China and top officials in the Kenyan government are shady, greased with bribes and other antecedents, such as all-expenses-paid shopping trips to China and scholarships given to Kenyan elite.
“China plays a big part in corrupting leaders to gain business advantages through corruption within Africa, especially in Kenya,” the paper stated.
Debt Trap
Kenya’s debt to China has ballooned in recent years, according to Kenyan media. Debt owed to China stood at $4.75 billion in 2017, an increase of 52.8 percent from the previous year, and a seven-fold increase from 2013, according to an Aug. 21 article by Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke, citing data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. That amount figures to grow as Kenya moves to the second part of phase two of the SGR.
The mounting debt has some Kenyan experts worried. Jaindi Kisero, a former managing editor with Nation Media Group, the largest independent media house in East and Central Africa, warned that the country could fall into a debt trap, much like what has already happened to Sri Lanka, in an opinion article he penned in the Daily Nation that was published in May.
“The Chinese will readily offer you infrastructure loans, but you will only start feeling the pinch when the time for servicing the debt comes calling—and you realize that your economy is not raising enough dollars to repay it,” wrote Kisero. He added that Kenya must pay back about $258 million in debt to China in 2018, and about $814 million next year, citing data from Kenya’s National Treasury.
Kisero concluded, “Kenya must not be left to suffer the indignity of the Sri Lankans.”
Sri Lanka handed over control of its main southern port located in Hambantota in December 2017, after China financed an OBOR project there. Sri Lanka was unable to pay back the $6 billion in loans and, thus, converted the debt into equity.
Eric Wamanji, a public relations and communication expert, in an opinion article published in the Daily Nation in August, warned of China’s loans, not only for Kenya, but for other developing nations as well.
“China is a calculating financier. Most of its loans are collateralized against strategic assets like minerals or seaports,” Wamanji wrote. In Congo, for example, China has seized mining rights to copper and cobalt deposits—key materials for developing China’s new vehicles industry—after years of investment in the central African nation.
“When states default on the loans, this affords China the liberty to seize assets, and even territory, in lieu of the repayments,” Wamanji added.
The SGR is part of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road), Beijing’s massive investment initiative with countries throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Kenya is considered a strategic point in the maritime trade route laid out in OBOR plans, which runs from China through Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Greece, and finally, to Italy.
To push forward its OBOR initiative, Beijing has claimed that its projects will create jobs for locals where projects are being built. Yet, the contrary is often true.
Public Dissent
In October 2014, Kenyan youth blocked a section of a highway in Voi, a town in Taita-Taveta County in southern Kenya, to protest against China Roads and Bridges Company. The Chinese firm, contracted by Beijing, had hired foreigners instead of locals to build a section of the SGR, according to Daily Nation.
The same company was also the target of another protest in the same town in May 2017, with local youth protesting hiring discrimination against locals, according to Daily Nation.
Phase one of the SGR, a roughly 300-mile-long railway connecting Kenya’s capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa, was built at a cost of $3.2 billion with Chinese financing and inaugurated in June 2017, according toReuters. China’s state-run Export-Import Bank of China paid for 90 percent of the cost, and the Kenyan government paid the remaining 10 percent.
The first part of phase two, a roughly 75-mile railway linking Nairobi to Naivasha, a town located northwest of Nairobi, is currently under construction.
Mombasa eventually will serve as a trade gateway in East Africa, as the SGR will link to railways in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The second part of phase two—at a cost of $3.8 billion—is a railway linking Naivasha and Kisumu, a port city on Lake Victoria, a body of water bordered by three nations: Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Kenyans Wary of China’s One Belt, One Road Investments
Tanzania culd have been in the same situation if not JPM seized some bullshit contracts with China...Mzimu wa Nyerere ulikuja kuokoa [emoji1241] kupitia JPM [emoji120][emoji120][emoji120][emoji120]...nina uhakika kama [emoji1139] wakija kuomba ushauri kwa JPM nini wafanye ili wapone wangefanikiwa coz i believe JPM is a genius that always has a solution to solve things that were believed to be unsolvable[emoji4][emoji4][emoji4]but wanasema sikio la kufa halisikii dawa. R.I.P Kenyan[emoji137]♀️[emoji137]♀️...its time for other African nations that were despised by Kenya to rise up.
Ngokongosha
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Kafrican
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Naona wimbo wa tuta, tuki, bado hamjauwacha.
Hebu tuweke mambo mawili matatu sawa.
1) Kenya imeshajenga zaidi ya km 500 za SGR ikiwemo ICD ambazo zinafanya kazi tayari(ICD yenye uwezo wa 480K TEUS, Dar port ina uwezo wa 600k TEUS, so that ICD is almost as big as Dar port) , Tanzania bado kumaliza ujenzi wa phase 1.
phase 2A ya Kenya iko 60% complete na inamalizika june 2019 , phase 1 ya Tz iko 20% complete na inamalizika 2020...... This game is far from over! tukifika huko 2020 na uone Kenya bado phase 2B,C za Kenya bado hazijaendelea, hapo ndo utaweza kusema Kenya imeshindwa kabisa... Na hata baada ya Tz kumaliza Ujenzi na kenya pia kumaliza ujenzi, hapo ndo game itakua inaanza rasmi, baada ya kama miaka 7 hivi ndo tutajua SGR ya nani inafanya kazi... impact ya SGR zetu kwa uchumi ndo zitadetermine nani alishinda game.... Waulize wa ethiopia waliomaliza ujenzi wa SGR yao miaka mitatu iliopita, impact yake hadi wa leo bado haijaanza kuonekana...
2) Bajeti ya Kenya ya infrastructure ni 50% zaidi ya Tanzania.
3) Kulingana na WB, Kenya ni ya pili, nyuma ya SA hapa sub-sahara Africa kwa uchukuzi - Logistics
4) Banadri ya Mombasa ni mara dufu ya Bandari ya Dar..
So, tell me, how do you see Tz rising up to overtake Kenya because of a delayed SGR project that is already way ahead of yours even when you factor in a possible delay of 1-2 years?
Mlipo gundua Gesi comments ilikua ni hizo hizo za its time for Tz to rise..blah blah blah... 10 years later, gap between Kenya and Tz is even wider!
Geza Ulole
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wacha stupid self denial pitia kuona Dar, Tanga and Mtwara ports expansion. Dar-Moro SGR is over 22% n will be ready on Nov. 2019. Until that day is due no right to speculate. BTW third phase Makutupora-Tabora is about to be launched with funds in hand! Wacha wivu kijana TAZARA flyover that u were negatively yapping about has just been opened well before deadline.
Geza Ulole
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show me one locomotive that looks like that in ur fleet of chinese mitambo ya gongo!
Types of Freight and Vehicles
We are the major transporters of mineral ores and refined copper, manganese, cobalt and other minerals out of Zambia and the DRC, but also conversely we serve as a key conduit for all kinds of bulk imports from all over the world including fuels, hardware, coke/coal, timber/wood, fertilizers and other critical inputs into the mines and agricultural farmlands of Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and the DRC, as well as Rwanda and Burundi through the Port of Mpulungu on Lake Tanganyika.
The CK6 diesel locomotive is a diesel-hydraulic locomotive manufactured for TAZARA by CSR Chengdu Co, Ltd of China.The locomotive is a 977kW diesel-hydraulic locomotive with 80t adhesive weight, B-B wheel arrangement and 65Km/h top service speed. It is suitable for the shunting and transfer services only.
The 3000 Horsepower GE U30C Diesel Electric Locomotive is manufactured by General Electric of the USA. It is a very reliable locomotive that is well suited to the mountainous terrain of the Southern part of Tanzania.
Fuel carrying wagons
Copper carrying wagons
Low-sided wagons can carryall types of machinery as well as containers
Covered wagons for all kinds of merchandise
Types of Freight and Vehicles | TAZARA
rantheb
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Aisee umenena!
rantheb
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Sure mzimu wa Nyerere umerudi kupitia JPM......Japo life linabana ila maendeleo yanaonekana bayana!
Kafrican
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Dar+Tanga+Mtwara is less than Mombasa, infact while you are celebrating the expansion an oil terminal in Mtwara, KPC has just finished builing a $500m pipeline that transports 1 million liters per hour! and KPA has just awarded a $400m construction tender for building of a new oil terminal in Mombasa that will have a storage capacity to support supplying refined oil to the whole region for 5 months!!!! You cannot match that!
Alafu huko kwengine una repeat what I have just said alafu unajifanya ni kama umesema kitu tofauti...
I said Tz SGR phase 1 is 20% complete , and you say its 22% complete complete.
I said Tz SGR phase 1 will be completed 2020 and you say it will be completed Nov,2019.
=== Are you trying to dismiss my points on technicalities, really?
Alafu kuhusu hio Tazara, all new roads are opened for use before they are officially launched, hata Thika road, Southern bypass, outer ring road was opened for public long before it was officially opened. But since this is your first flyover in the whole of TZ, we will excuse you for making such a comment
Geza Ulole
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which pipeline? The one with no bunkering detection system. My friend stop celebrating pillage n plundering of resources in that country!
Geza Ulole
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mwaswast
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Kuzindua tena yani kila siku JPM anazindua the same thing bila any progress, Danganyika republik ni shithole kabisaaaaa.
joto la jiwe
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Hahahahahaha