China beats France to major highway project linking Kenya and Uganda

Finally, it will be China. Once again. William Ruto, the President of Kenya, announced on Tuesday, September 3, that he was getting closer to the Asian giant to the detriment of French investors in the Nairobi-Malaba highway project. The announcement was made at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is being held from September 4 to 6 in Beijing.

This dual carriageway project, including a 175-kilometre toll section, is to link the Kenyan capital to the Ugandan border. Its widening should eventually allow for faster transport of goods from the port of Mombasa to Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

A consortium of French companies, including Vinci, had won the public contract in 2019, but Mr Ruto’s arrival in power in September 2022 had undermined the project. In recent months, there were rumors in Nairobi that the project had come to a standstill and that construction of the“northern highway” could finally return to the Middle Kingdom, which was therefore done at Focac. “These links [avec la Chine] benefit both our countries”the Kenyan president said from Beijing.

“It may be surprising that the construction of the northern highway is being given to Chinajudge Waithaka Iraki, professor at the University of Nairobi. During the 2022 presidential campaign, William Ruto and his entourage repeatedly said they wanted to stop turning to China for construction projects. Mr Ruto said he wanted to break with the practices of his predecessors, Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta. It turns out that he did not.

A market worth more than a billion euros

Since the end of the 2000s, the Asian giant has won numerous Kenyan construction contracts: the Thika highway, the Nairobi expressway and the Mombasa-Nairobi train line. We have to go back to 2019 to understand the genesis of the Nairobi-Malaba highway project. That year, a group of three French companies – Vinci Autoroutes, Meridiam and Vinci Concessions – won the call for tenders launched by the Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha) three years earlier.

The deal is estimated at 169 billion shillings (about 1.2 billion euros). The French consortium plans to recoup its investment over thirty years through a toll system, a criterion set by the Kenyan authorities. A price of 780 shillings (5.50 euros) for cars and 6,500 shillings (45.50 euros) for trucks is set to be allowed to drive on the 175-kilometre stretch.

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