kenyans fear chinesebacked railway
Last Updated : GMT 05:17:37
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
Last Updated : GMT 05:17:37
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice

Kenyans fear Chinese-backed railway

Emiratesvoice, emirates voice

Emiratesvoice, emirates voice Kenyans fear Chinese-backed railway

The Railway
Nairobi - Gulf News

With sloping, charcoal-grey walls that resemble the elegant curves of a luxury car, Nairobi’s sleek new railway station, built by China, looks more like an airport terminal reserved for wealthy Kenyans and their private jets.
Given the price tag, it might just as well be. President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government spent $4 billion (Dh14.69 billion) on a 500-kilometre railway connecting the capital to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, the most expensive infrastructure project since Kenya’s independence 54 years ago and one-fifth of its national budget.
Eager to portray it as a major achievement ahead of national elections in August, Kenyatta opened the so-called Standard Gauge Railway on May 31.
But the fanfare was overshadowed by a concern that has been snowballing for months, filling many Kenyans with mild terror: How can the country repay its monstrous debt to China?
Trade imbalance
China’s Eximbank accounts for about 90 per cent of the Nairobi-Mombasa project. The loan has already pushed the Kenyan debt above 50 per cent of output, and imports of Chinese supplies and materials required to build the railway are making people anxious about Kenya’s worsening trade imbalance with China.
The new Kenyan line “bears the Kenyan people’s dream for this century of striving for national development and prosperity,” a Chinese vice foreign minister, Zhang Ming, said in Nairobi this month. But on Kenyan TV, reports about the railway’s opening invariably turned to its inflated cost, and to questions of corruption.
On one show, a politician who had switched allegiances from the opposition to Kenyatta’s party and who extolled the railway’s virtues was quickly submerged by calls from viewers. “You are lying,” one person said. “You were bribed.”
As a result of the railway’s gargantuan cost, and the equally enormous task of repaying China, some Kenyans already have a nickname for it: the Lunatic Express 2.
The name Lunatic Express was coined more than a century ago to describe a colonial British railway so costly it was considered a “gigantic folly”.
The 1,000-kilometre line linked Lake Victoria with Mombasa. Thousands of labourers, most of them Indians, died from harsh working conditions, disease, hostile tribes and even man-eating lions.
“It’s madness,” said Samuel Nyandemo, a senior lecturer in economics at Nairobi University, who was visibly outraged. Why, he almost shouted, is the railway twice as expensive as a similar project in neighbouring Ethiopia or Morocco? And why was the tendering process done behind closed doors, if not to allow Kenya’s political elite to pocket vast sums of kickbacks?
“This is another type of lunacy,” he said.
Source : Gulf News

GMT 00:59 2018 Friday ,19 January

BMW aims to reignite US car sales

GMT 09:01 2018 Thursday ,18 January

EU car sales top 15-mn barrier in 2017: data

GMT 17:32 2018 Tuesday ,16 January

Fiat Chrysler won't sell Jeep

GMT 06:56 2018 Tuesday ,16 January

Lamborghini races to new sales record

GMT 22:50 2018 Sunday ,14 January

Tesla faces fresh Norway lawsuit

GMT 22:46 2018 Sunday ,14 January

BMW drives to new sales record
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

kenyans fear chinesebacked railway kenyans fear chinesebacked railway

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

kenyans fear chinesebacked railway kenyans fear chinesebacked railway

 



GMT 10:08 2018 Wednesday ,24 January

Microsoft to open 4 data centres

GMT 11:03 2018 Tuesday ,23 January

No end to eyesores at Taj Mahal

GMT 10:18 2018 Thursday ,30 August

Iran incapable of closing Hormuz, Bab Al Mandeb

GMT 17:39 2017 Saturday ,30 September

Executive authority’s structure and powers

GMT 11:05 2016 Wednesday ,20 July

France says no terror plot

GMT 14:57 2011 Tuesday ,21 June

Capital Club to host leading Emirati filmmaker

GMT 19:40 2017 Wednesday ,17 May

Actress Wafaa Amer says her works present new

GMT 13:59 2017 Sunday ,15 October

The most important new resorts in the UAE

GMT 20:44 2017 Tuesday ,07 November

Here's how UAE teachers can get a free trip to US

GMT 11:20 2015 Wednesday ,02 December

Chris Brown cancels Australia, New Zealand tour

GMT 10:33 2014 Thursday ,25 September

Lubna discusses ways to enhance partnership

GMT 02:34 2014 Sunday ,26 January

\'Girl Meets World\' gets full-season order

GMT 16:34 2011 Tuesday ,12 July

Jail warning to save Philippine geckos

GMT 12:36 2011 Wednesday ,13 July

Japan to hunt whales despite Sea Shepherd

GMT 13:09 2013 Saturday ,09 November

7 ways to have better memory, remember everything

GMT 09:43 2017 Thursday ,12 January

More than 50 dead in Yemen fighting in two days

GMT 04:53 2016 Friday ,09 September

At least 8 injured as blast hits Pakistan's Peshawar

GMT 21:26 2016 Thursday ,14 July

IOF open fire on Palestinian, Shuafat

GMT 16:04 2015 Saturday ,23 May

Gigi Hadid stuns at gala
Emiratesvoice, emirates voice
 
 Emirates Voice Facebook,emirates voice facebook  Emirates Voice Twitter,emirates voice twitter Emirates Voice Rss,emirates voice rss  Emirates Voice Youtube,emirates voice youtube  Emirates Voice Youtube,emirates voice youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

emiratesvoieen emiratesvoiceen emiratesvoiceen emiratesvoiceen
emiratesvoice emiratesvoice emiratesvoice
emiratesvoice
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
emiratesvoice, Emiratesvoice, Emiratesvoice