A report by a US research university has ranked Kenya first in Africa and third globally with the highest value of China-funded projects linked to corruption.
The survey by US University flagged three China-funded projects in Kenya valued at $3.552 billion (Ksh394.27 billion) whose implementation has faced claims of corruption and financial malpractice.
This is the highest value in Africa followed by Zambia’s $585 million (Ksh64.93 billion). Globally Malaysia leads with $14.541 billion (about Ksh1.61 trillion) in two projects and was second with $3.901 billion (Ksh433.01 billion) in a single project.
The findings are part of a report by AidData, an international development research laboratory based at the College of William & Mary, covering some 13,427 projects worth $843 billion (Ksh93.23 trillion) funded by China across 165 countries over 18 year period.
In their findings, Kenya was ranked first among African countries that has its China-funded development bogged down by the misuse of funds, collusion, inflation of costs, and kickbacks.
AidData reported that China-funded infrastructure projects in Kenya are worth nearly Ksh394.27 billion, which were mostly implemented under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Projects implemented under the BRI in Kenya include; the construction of the standard-gauge railway (SGR), the expansion of the Mombasa Port, the construction of the Lamu port, the installation of safe city surveillance systems in Nairobi and Mombasa among others.
The report does not specify the affected projects. However, there have been several reports that show the cost of construction of the SGR project was highly inflated.
For instance, Tanzania is constructing an electric rail at half price of Kenya’s diesel Standard Gauge Railway line.
In 2017, Tanzania awarded a $1.92 billion contract to a Turkish firm to build 422 kilometres of its SGR. Though the deal was just a fifth of the total line that Tanzania plans to build, the deal has shone a new spotlight on costs of building railways in the region.
Tanzania’s electric railway has been designed to support a maximum speed of 160km per hour for passenger trains and 120km per hour for freight.
This pales in comparison to Kenya’s line whose passenger’s train has a maximum speed of 120 kilometres per hour, and its freight will be doing 80 kilometres per hour at best. This means that in every hour, the Tanzanian train would cover an extra stretch of 40 kilometres ahead of the Kenyan train.
Besides speed, Tanzania’s line also appears to be slightly superior since it is electric. Kenya opted for diesel-powered engine that can be upgraded into electric in future.
At $1.92 billion (Ksh192 billion), Tanzania appears to have secured the cheapest railway construction deal in the region, given that it will be spending nearly half of what Kenya spent to build the first phase from Mombasa to Nairobi.
Kenya’s line between Mombasa and Nairobi, which was slightly longer by about 50 kilometres, was constructed at a cost of $3.8 billion (Ksh380.4 billion).
Related: SGR Registers Sh21bn loss As Chinese Debt Rises
