Kenya\u2019s flagship railway project registered losses of $100m (\u00a376m) in its first year of operation, according to the transport ministry.<\/p>\n
The China-funded standard gauge railway – which links the coastal city of Mombasa to the capital, Nairobi, – was funded by a $3bn loan from China\u2019s Exim bank, to be repaid over 15 years.<\/p>\n
Kenya dismissed concerns that the railway project was overpriced, unsustainable and economically unviable.<\/p>\n
The railway line was central to President Uhuru Kenyatta\u2019s re-election strategy, launched only months before the presidential poll last year.<\/p>\n
While passenger trains get fully booked regularly, the minister said it was hard convincing businessmen to switch cargo transportation from road to rail.<\/p>\n
Transport Minister James Macharia told a parliamentary committee that the state was now discussing with major private industries on how to make rail transport more viable.<\/p>\n
The repayment begins next year, and if the railway doesn\u2019t break even by then, Kenyan taxpayers will have to foot that bill.<\/p>\n
Economists estimate that China now owns 70% of Kenya\u2019s debt. However, the government hopes the railway will start making a profit in the next financial year.<\/p>\n
BBC<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kenya\u2019s flagship railway project registered losses of $100m (\u00a376m) in its first year of operation, according to the transport ministry. The China-funded standard gauge railway – which links the coastal city of Mombasa to the capital, Nairobi, – was funded by a $3bn loan from China\u2019s Exim bank, to be repaid over 15 years. Kenya […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":4944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4946,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions\/4946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}