A huge portion of Kenya's borrowing if from China. The Chinese government wants to establish a marine trade route from China, India, Middle east, East Africa and Europe.(google 'One belt one road' project to learn about it).

As with all loans, collateral must be given. Folk in Central refer to this as 'gucuria mugunda'.

Sri Lanka for example has leased one of its ports to China for 99 years as payment for inability to pay a US$ 1.3b. loan to build the port. Some have called this Ukoloni but from where i stand, let the Chinese build and run. They are already paying themselves with SGR with a 10 year concession with year one elapsing June 2018.If you did a random survey while travelling on SGR, most travellers will tell you they'd rather let the Chinese run the railway for 25 years because they fear that if it was left to us Africans, we will run it down with our corruption and nepotism.( this is to me is very disappointing because at this age and time, we Africans/kenyans still have not yet figured it out - to run our social-economic affairs without corruption.)


Therefore if you ask me, i'd say let Uhuruto continue borrowing and build the one belt one road project. With a little austerity measures(more so recurrent expenditure and the usual government wastage e.g., 200m shillings Madaraka day celebrations etc) a one trillion shilling tax revenue Kenya can pay these loans in a shorter period.

How Kenya is related to the one silk road project

Kenya has enough collateral to pay these debts so lets borrow and build for exponential economic growth of the future.

Think about it that interest rates are going higher and the dollar is going lower. It means the market knows the US rates will need to go much higher to attract dollars to the US assets(Actually we may get better interest rates with our Euro-bonds than equivalent US junk bonds). If US rates get to sufficient level then the dollars hanging around will rush home. Kenya has 2 billion dollars to repay in 2024 Eurobonds. What the impact you ask-the forex reserves get depleted then currency gets devalued and kenya imports inflation


Well I'm glad that you are now appreciating the risk. What if the Libor rate is at 10% in 2023



The pipeline is being built by Total/Tullow so whatever capital investment dollars they bring in we spend to repay Kenya's debt. There is much cheaper oil in the world than Turkana's. It's more likely oil price drops to $30-35 which makes Turkana oil unviable to commercially exploit.

Lunatic express has been here for 100+ years it's not improved our exports. It was a white elephant whose cost of repayment eventually led to the mau mau conflict. The cargo volumes in east africa will not magically go up because of SGR. The cargo volumes to satisfy SGR capacity will appear maybe in 2050. Most of Kenya's valuable exports horticulture are exported through airports not seaports.

I will answer you last queries later

No. We should refrain from borrowing until we can recover some stolen funds or improve tax revenue.

We cant keep borrowing and stealing...one needs to stop.

Thieves should be taxed for what they steal...

Correct if I'm wrong lunatic express was quite expensive and it had to pay for itself. This was done by encouraging the establishment of 'white highlands'to fuel a modern economy. That also meant forcing the what they called natives into native reserves, the start of the hut tax and poll tax forcing the natives to exchange labor for money to pay tax. Isn't it the peasants who were expelled from the rift valley who gathered up to form the Land and Freedom Army, the army of ithaka na wiathi.

Same thing with SGR instead of 'white highlands' you instead have establishment of Special economic zones SEZs

Yes you can transport goods cheaply without expensive infrastructure. If you are manufacturing for export why not locate the industries at the coastal belt or it is re-export locate the industries in kisumu



Simple wealth is the output of production. The interplay of the factors of production capital, labor, land and technology (human capital) is what turns idle resources into wealth. The road to wealth starts by providing goods and services that the population wants and is willing to pay for. The more goods and services produced the more the wealth and infrastructure to serve the economy grows.
The economy grows where there is an exchange of goods and knowledge. Urban expansion is the best way to promote the exchange of knowledge and promote the division and specialization of labor.

Government spending does not stimulate economic growth. It just redistributes the income it collects from taxes. It misallocates capital towards less productive uses. It is wasteful in expenditure e.g. 10 bob biro pen will cost the govt 150. Kenya economic history shows growth has come when govt has taken a back seat and allowed private sector generate wealth.

The very reason I was opposing the move by kivutha to get his county govt into business.

Economist Solow in his Solow modell describes how a country can beat poverty in a space of fifteen years
In a nutshell he says, the rate of technogical advacement in a year should exceed populational growth.It is then and only then, that country can beat poverty
In few words, there is no economic growth without investmenting in things like SGR.