Kenya Has A Healthy Mix Of Debts – President Kenyatta Tells Quest

Kenya has a healthy mix of debts from the multilateral lenders, President Uhuru Kenyatta told CNN’s Richard Quest.

According to the head of state, China is not the only lender that Kenya has, noting that Japan and France have also aided in funding development projects as well.

Kenyatta in the interview aired on CNN on Monday night, dismissed claims that China has ulterior motives behind its lending spree to African countries.

“As far as I am concerned, we have a very healthy mix of debt from the multilateral lenders — who are basically the World Bank and the African Development Bank — to bilateral lenders like Japan, China, France, all who are participating and working with us to help us achieve our objectives,” the President said.

The President also questioned why critics only pay attention to Kenya’s debt to China while Japan remains the biggest lender to Kenya’s port projects while France funds electricity generation projects.

“Why are we focusing ourselves only on one lender?” he posed, adding that he is not worried about the high ratio of debt against the gross domestic product (GDP).

“What would worry me is if the debt that we have incurred has gone into recurrent expenditure, has gone into paying salaries or electricity bills and so on and so forth. But what we have utilized our debt for is to close the infrastructure gap,” Kenyatta added.

Quest who was in the country covering the inaugural Kenya Airways direct flight to the US, also asked the President if he was interested in amending the Constitution to allow him run for a third term.

Kenyatta gave a simple “No” response.

Here is the interview:

Do you have a story you want told? Do you know of a sensitive story you would like us to get our hands on? Email your news TIPS to Editor@kahawatungu.com