President Uhuru Kenyatta has rubbished claims that the port of Mombasa risks being seized by the Chinese government as repayment for loans owed to the Asian state.
In a recent report, Auditor General Edward Ouko claimed that the port could be taken over by China should Kenya fail to pay a debt of Ksh227 billion owed to the Chinese Exim Bank.
This, he said, was the agreement before the loan was given to the nation.
But in an interview with members of the press from the Mombasa state house on Friday evening, Uhuru dismissed the Ouko report, saying that the port is safe.
He noted that there is nothing of the sort in the contract signed between the two governments. According to Uhuru, the claims by Ouko were baseless and purely unfounded propaganda.
"There is nothing of the sort in our contract with China. The port is safe and whatever is being said about that is propaganda," responded Uhuru, adding that "the Chinese government has itself confirmed that there is no such clause in our agreement."
The President added that his government has a justification for its increasing appetite for loans, saying that the money has been put to good use.
Uhuru posited that the benefits of the credit are clearly visible and have been channeled into long-term investments in form of development and infrastructural projects.
"We are not borrowing to consume but to invest in development projects. Everyone can see that roads are coming up, one of our biggest projects if the Standard Gauge Railway which is now headed to Naivasha from Nairobi, on its way to Kisumu," he bragged.