The mainland state owned China Road and Bridge Corporation won the contract last year to build the high-speed railway running between the Kenyan port city of Mombasa and Nairobi. Photo: Xinhua

Managers of Chinese state-owned enterprise building US$3.8b African railway fined for bribery

Published: 11:45am, 2 Oct 2015

Two managers of a Chinese state-owned enterprise building a railway in East Africa have been fined after admitting bribery in a court in Kenya.

Liu Yabin, a senior official at the China Road and Bridge Corporation, and his colleague, Tang Ju, who is a liaison officer, both pleaded guilty last month to offering and paying bribes to Kenyan highway representatives, a spokeswoman for Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission said on Thursday.

Kenyan employees work on a section of the railway, which is being carried out by the mainland state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation. Photo: Xinhua

The men were arrested after offering bribes to highway officials on September 4 and 5 in an attempt to have penalties waived after being stopped for overloading their trucks with construction materials.

Liu had been accused of offering a bribe of 30,000 Kenyan Shillings (HK$2,200) and Tang of offering a bribe of KS100,000.

Both Tang and Liu had now been freed after paying a court fine of KS380,000, the commission spokeswoman said.

The court had ordered Tang to serve 20 months in prison and Liu six months in jail if they failed to pay the fines.

The men were caught separately during a joint-sting operation, organised by the commission and Kenyan highway officials, and were convicted during separate anti-corruption trials held on September 24 and 30.

China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang (front) gives a speech next to Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta (left), Rwandan President Paul Kagame (second right) and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (right) at a news conference after the Chinese state-run corporation won the tender to build the railway in May last year. Photo: EPA

Earlier, a spokesman for the China Road and Bridge Corp had earlier denied reports that the two employees were facing charges of bribery, and claimed they had merely been trying to pay the penalty imposed after officials had caught them overloading their trucks.

The spokesman said officials had then “suddenly arrested” the men and accused them of offering bribes.

China Road and Bridge Corp also denied that Liu worked for the company.

China won the tender in May last year to build the US$3.8 billion railway, running between the Kenyan port city of Mombasa and Nairobi, which will link up the capitals of neighbouring Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.

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