The Port of Mombasa Was Never at Risk of Being Seized by China

April 26, 2022

A 2018 leaked report from Kenya's Auditor General sparked a years-long frenzy over whether the Port of Mombasa was put up as collateral against the loans from the China Exim Bank for the Standard Gauge Railway and could be seized in the event of a default.

The story is now a foundational part of the "debt trap" lending narrative that continues to cloud Chinese infrastructure financing in Africa.

A team led by Professor Deborah Brautigam, director of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, spent the past two years researching the issue and concluded in a new report that the Auditor General was wrong in his assessment. Neither the Port of Mombasa nor any Kenyan asset was ever at risk of forfeiture to the Chinese.

Deborah and two of her research colleagues, Vijay Bhalaki from Athena Infonomics and Paris-based attorney Laure Deron, join Eric & Cobus to discuss their findings.

SHOW NOTES:

• The East African: Mombasa Port at risk as audit finds it was used to secure SGR loan: https://bit.ly/3Lgz76w
• The China-Africa Research Initiative: How Africa Borrows From China: And Why Mombasa Port is Not Collateral for Kenya's Standard Gauge: https://bit.ly/37D6i5H

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