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.
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.
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.”
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.
“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.
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.