Kenya seeking ‘way out’ of China SGR debt

Kenya is facing the daunting task of paying China a piling amount that it owes for the Chinese funded multibillion dollar Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). Only a short while ago, the National Treasury asked parliament to allow it some US$940 million dollars to make its latest installment to pay to China. After millions of dollars have been dumped into the Kenyan ambitious SGR project, now Kenya wants China back on the discussion table to revisit the terms.   Sources say the amount covers interest and principal installments invested by the Chinese government and other entities including the Chinese Exim Bank and the China Development Bank. It is no surprise that the Kenyan lawmakers want a sit-down with their Chinese counterparts to discuss the payment because the SGR is not making as much money as was projected.  The plan was for the railway to carry goods from Mombasa port into landlocked Africa. What was not planned for was other East African countries making their own plans. Tanzania went ahead and built its own SGR to ferry goods from its own Dar es Salaam port to the same landlocked countries that Kenya was aiming for. Uganda decided it did not like the Kenyan