Audio By VocalizePresident William Ruto and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni during the official launch of Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba SGR, on Saturday, March 21, 2026. Kenya now spends roughly $1 billion a year servicing Chinese debt, most of it borrowed to build the railway. Ruto met his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, in Kisumu near the Kenya-Uganda border, where the line is due to reach by June 2027 if the ambitious building schedule is to be believed. Treasury estimates say the overall cost will be more than 500 billion shillings ($3.9 billion), according to Kenya's Business Daily. It stopped lending from 2020 to 2023 as Kenya struggled to make repayments, at a time when China revised its broader lending strategy to Africa.

Source: Standard Digital March 21, 2026 15:43 UTC