Uganda is about to lose its only international airport, the Entebbe International Airport, to China after the recent expiration of a debt agreement with the Asian country.
On November 17, 2015, the government of Uganda signed an agreement with Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) to borrow $207 million at two percent upon disbursement, with a maturity period of 20 years and a seven-year grace period.
With Uganda’s failure to pay back the loan, it means Uganda will give up its most prominent and only international airport.
A recent statement issued by the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), says “some provisions in the Financing Agreement with China exposed the Entebbe International Airport and other Ugandan assets to be attached and taken over by Chinese lenders upon arbitration in Beijing.”
Also, China has rejected recent pleas by Uganda to renegotiate the stringent conditions of the 2015 loan, leaving President Yoweri Museveni’s administration in problem.
The report which come out from a discrete investigation carried out by a media outfit into the deal revealed that the government of Ugandan had waived international immunity in the agreement it reached to secure the loans, thereby exposing the Entebbe International Airport to take over without any form of international protection.
The report said: “The Ugandan government had, in March, sent a delegation to Beijing hoping to renegotiate the toxic clauses of the deal but the officials came back empty-handed as China would not allow the terms of the original deal to be varied.
“Last week, Uganda’s Finance Minister Matia Kasaija apologized to parliament for the mishandling of the $207 million loan from the China Exim Bank to expand Entebbe International Airport.”
