Sierra Leone cancels $400m China-funded Mamamah airport
SIERRA Leone has cancelled a $400m Chinese-funded project to build a new airport outside the capital Freetown.
Former President Ernest Bai Koroma signed the loan agreement with China before he lost elections in March.
At the time, the World Bank and the IMF warned that the project would impose a heavy debt burden.
The decision comes amid concern that many African countries risk defaulting on their debts to China.
Aviation Minister Kabineh Kallon told the
BBC that the project, which was due to have been completed in 2022, wasn’t necessary and its current international airport would be renovated instead.
He said the current president, Julius Maada Bio, “didn’t see any need for Mamamah (the proposed airport)” and was considering building a bridge from the capital to Lungi airport, the only international airport in the country. Currently passengers need to get a boat or helicopter to reach Freetown.
Kallon said he did not know whether the cancelled contract would lead to financial implications, and Sierra Leone remained on good terms with China.
“As a sovereign state, I do have the right to take the best decision for the country,” he said.
China is now the single largest bilateral financier of infrastructure in Africa, surpassing the African Development Bank (ADB), the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank and the Group of eight (G8) countries combined.
Critics say China is luring countries into debt traps by lending them money for massive infrastructure projects.
In August 16 American senators voiced their concern about “predatory Chinese infrastructure lending” in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Zambia’s government has had to publicly deny reports China could seize some of its parastatal com- panies if it defaulted on loan repayments.
But China has denied claims that it is leading countries into a debt trap.
“If we take a closer look at these African countries that are heavily in debt, China is not their main creditor,” China’s special envoy for Africa, Xu Jinghu, told a news conference in September.
“It’s senseless and baseless to shift the blame onto China for debt problems.”