Kenya has approached international development lenders to help fund a $2 billion expansion of Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), nine months after cancelling a deal with India’s Adani Group following the indictment of its founder in the United States.
With public debt rising and the need for alternative infrastructure financing growing, the government will also issue a securitised bond worth 175 billion shillings ($1.36 billion) next month to fund road construction, Transport Minister Davis Chirchir told reporters.
Chirchir said development agencies have been invited to finance the airport project using JKIA’s balance sheet as leverage.
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According to Reuters, those contacted include the Japan International Cooperation Agency, China Exim Bank, KfW, the European Investment Bank, and the African Development Bank.
The planned expansion will add a second runway and a new terminal building. Once funding is in place, Kenya will move to select a contractor for the project.
Unlike the Adani arrangement, which involved a concessionaire building and operating the facility for 30 years after construction, Kenya now plans to build the airport itself and may consider concessioning it later.
The previous $736 million public-private partnership with an Adani subsidiary to build power transmission lines was also cancelled after President Ruto’s directive.
The Adani deal was dropped last year after U.S. prosecutors accused Gautam Adani and several company executives of bribing officials to secure Indian power contracts and misleading U.S. investors.
The Adani Group has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and saying it will cooperate with legal proceedings.
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Image Credit: Business Insider Africa
