NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s President William Ruto will ask China for a $1 billion loan to complete stalled road construction projects when he travels to Beijing later this month, his deputy said on Friday.
Ruto will also ask the Chinese government to give the East African nation more time to repay the debts it is servicing, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said in an interview with a local radio station Inooro FM.
“At the moment we are paying debt and people are not using roads because many of them are half finished,” Gachagua said.
“If we get $1 billion we can be able to give these people (contractors) the money they are owed so they can return so even as we pay the debt, the roads are completed.”
Kenya owes China more than $8 billion in loans for infrastructure projects such as railways and roads.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri and George Obulutsa; Editing by Mark Potter and Kim Coghill)
