Kenya has defaulted on payment of the Chinese loans provided to build the standard gauge railway, highlighting the country’s struggles with the mounting public debt.

The Chinese banks fined Kenya Sh1.312 billion in the year ended June for loan defaults, according to Treasury documents seen by Business Daily.

Kenya tapped over half a trillion shillings from Chinese lenders, led by the Export-Import Bank of China, to fund the construction of the SGR from Mombasa to Naivasha.

Taxpayers have been forced to shoulder the burden of the SGR loans because revenues generated from the passenger and cargo services on the track are not enough to meet the operation costs, which stood at Sh18.5 billion in the year to June against sales of Sh15 billion.

China, which accounted for about one-third of Kenya’s 2021-22 external debt service costs, is the nation’s biggest foreign creditor after the World Bank. Kenya spent a total of Sh117.7 billion on Chinese debt in the period, of which about Sh24.7 billion is in interest payments and almost Sh93 billion in redemptions, according to budget documents.

Repayment of the SGR loan started in January 2020 after the lapse of a five-year grace period that Beijing had given Kenya.

The loan default underscores Kenya’s financial distress in the face of fast-maturing debts that have eaten deep into tax collections and squeezed funds for development projects.

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration largely took loans from China from 2014 to build roads, bridges, power plants and the SGR.

This started after Kenya became a lower-middle-income economy, locking her out of highly concessional loans from development lenders such as the World Bank.

billion) relates to the cost of default on interest at one percent of the due amount,” say the disclosure documents seen by the Business Daily.SGR posted an operation loss of Sh3.4 billion, and wired Sh22.7 billion in loan repayments in the year to June.

The default came in a year when Kenya had asked for an extension of the debt repayment moratorium from bilateral lenders, including China, by another six months to December 2021, saving it from committing billions to the Beijing lenders.

But the lenders, especially Exim Bank of China, opposed Kenya’s application for a debt repayment holiday in a standoff that delayed disbursements to projects funded by Chinese loans.

China postponed the repayments in January last year, helping Kenya temporarily retain Sh27 billion that was due for six months ending June 2021. The opposition from Chinese lenders forced Nairobi to drop its push for extension of the debt repayment holiday to avoid straining relations with Kenya’s biggest bilateral creditor.China postponed the repayments in January last year, helping Kenya temporarily retain Sh27 billion that was due for six months ending June 2021. The opposition from Chinese lenders forced Nairobi to drop its push for extension of the debt repayment holiday to avoid straining relations with Kenya’s biggest bilateral creditor.