According to Business Daily Beijing 87.08 percent of the money Kenya spent on interest payments to its bilateral lenders in the year through which ended in June 2019, went to China, compared to the figure of 81 percent a year earlier.
Statistics from Kenya’s Treasury, which shows in part the cost of the nation’s loans to taxpayers, revealed that the interest payments made to banks owned by the Chinese Government accounted for 29.21 billion Kenyan Shillings of the 33.54 billion Kenyan Shillings total interest spend on bilateral loans which is a 7.5 percent growth over the 27.17 billion Kenyan Shillings figure from a year earlier.
Kenya also collected an additional $929.46 million (96.53 billion Kenyan Shillings), further increasing its China debt to Kenya to $6.46 billion (671.15 billion Kenyan Shillings) in June 2019 compared to a year ago (2018)
China currently accounts for 66.38 percent of Kenya’s bilateral debt, an indicator of probable over reliance on the world power with regards to the funding of infrastructural projects.
Since 2014, Kenya’s loans from China have mostly gone towards the construction of the new roads, Standard Guage Railway (SGR), new roads as well as bridges.
The arrangement to fund the first phase of the Standard Guage Railway (SGR), is allegedly Kenya’s single biggest infrastructure project by cost alone, since the East African Nation’s independence, and has led to China overtaking Japan as Kenya’s largest bilateral lender.
China’s involvement in Kenya’s infrastructural projects first began with the construction of the Thika Superhighway which took place during the last term of President Mwai Kibaki between 2009 January and November 2012 at a cost of nearly 32 billion Kenyan Shillings.
China which is the world’s second largest economy after the United States, has since become Kenya’s single largest creditor.
As at June 2019, China accounted for 11.55 percent of Kenya’s 5.81 trillion Kenyan Shillings total debt.
