A few Chinese companies have amassed road and infrastructure contracts worth Sh1 trillion while Kenyan contractors are left to fight for small roads and sub contracts, reports the Business Daily.
Their speed, financing muscle and negotiation power has endeared them to almost all government departments, ministries and parastatals, which have seen them eat the lunch of local companies who the government accuses of shoddy jobs and uncompetitive bids.
China Communications Construction Co (CCCC) and its subsidiary China Road and Bridges Corporation (CRBC) holds the bulk of the road and railway contracts, earning about Sh777.1 billion.
Others include China Wu Yi, Synohydro, Jiangxi Engineering, China Railways 21 Bureau Group and Third Engineering Bureau of China City Construction Group that have earned hundreds of billions for projects across the country.
Local companies like S.S Mehta, H. Young, and Seco have been pushed to the periphery as Chinese firms secure lucrative road, rail, and electricity contracts.
The dominance of Chinese companies has left a bitter taste among local contractors who are now losing out even on county roads and real estate projects.
“The Chinese companies are now doing Kerra (Kenya Rural Roads Authority) Class D roads. Kenyan companies who used to be awarded these contracts have been forced out only for the Chinese companies with shared apartment address to be awarded six to ten jobs,” a local contractor who did not want to be named told the Business Daily.
China’s influence on Kenya’s mega projects development started gathering steam with the construction of the Thika Superhighway between January 2009 and November 2012 at a cost of nearly Sh32 billion in the last term of President Mwai Kibaki.
CRBC and CCCC have since bagged the lion’s share of Kenya’s mega projects — at least two railways, two ports and 23 road projects.
They include a $3.5 billion (Sh393.82 billion) standard gauge railway, a $398 million (Sh44.78 billion) oil terminal at the Mombasa port and road projects such as Southern, Western, and Eastern Bypass in Nairobi and the A109 National Highway Project.
They are expanding the Eastern Bypass, building Nairobi Expressway, Nairobi Inland Container Depot, Nairobi South Railway Station, Valley Road/Ngong Road/ Nyerere Road Interchange & Upper Hill/ Haile Selassie Overpass as well as the Naivasha Inland Container Depot, first three berths at Lamu Port and the Likoni Floating Bridge.
