Uwanja na magoli ni yale yale sijahamisha chochote, nyie mumejawa vituko mara vichwa vya treni vimeibuka bila ya kuwa na mmiliki, mumevikimbia nyote, mara kontena zinapatikana bila mmiliki, mara ndege limeshikiliwa kisa deni...nyie bana.
Subiri huu mziki wa China.
China is buying the world. Among the first LANDS to be sold to Chinese is Kenya.
*China Through SGR To Take Over Mombasa Port*
Over the last couple of weeks, news that China had taken ownership of a major Port in Sri Lanka was trending in Kenya for all the wrong reasons and biggest of all was fear.
Sri Lanka had taken too much debt from China to invest in infrastructure and started having issues with the payments.
The New York Times reports;
Struggling to pay its debt to Chinese firms, the nation of Sri Lanka formally handed over the strategic port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year lease last week, in a deal that government critics have said threatens the country’s sovereignty.
Kenya built the SGR from Mombasa to Nairobi at a *highly inflated cost of 327 billion*.
*Economic experts at the time had advised the government to instead spend a mere 16 billion and do the same job.*
Against all the bravado and digitization PR the government could master, it went ahead in constructing a whole new line at that inflated cost. *Other countries achieved much faster trains and more modern technologies for much less $$.*
*Now here is the problem, the loan for the construction of the SGR was actually insured by the Mombasa Port. A deal was agreed to that the port will provide business to the SGR.*
KPA is required to provide at least 6Million Tonnes annually to SGR or pay the difference where a shortfall occurs.
Because of this, a decree was issued that all containers destined for Nairobi and beyond will be transported by the SGR to the ICD in Nairobi for clearance. Problem is that the numbers are not working.
The passenger numbers expected cannot sustain running of the SGR passenger service. What this has resulted is increase in fares from the initial Sh 700 to now Sh1200 and numbers still dont add up.
The containers too are not working out. Aside from the big inconvenience to importers and the massive losses of jobs in Mombasa, the containers do not make enough to sustain the project.
*The SGR debt cannot be paid by the operations of the SGR itself (both the containers and passengers) and KPA cannot pay the difference as the funds are just not there.*
*So at the end, Kenya now faces the same situation as Sri Lanka, the Port was used as collateral and the option of leasing the management of the Port and SGR to China to offset the debt is becoming more real by the day.*