Chinese banks are Africa's biggest infrastructure lenders, but Beijing is sometimes accused of taking its customers into a "debt trap", with loans they fail to repay.

In the case of Entebbe, the only international airport in Uganda, the Chinese Import/Export Bank provided a loan of 200 million dollars (178 million euros) in 2015 to expand and modernize the facilities.

According to the loan contract revealed on Monday by the American research center AidData, the Ugandan State will have to deposit all of its airport revenues in an account held jointly with the creditor.

He will then have to repay the loan granted by China as a priority, before he can consider any other expenditure.

"These are the most leonine clauses we have ever seen," Bradley Parks, one of AidData's managers, told AFP.

The contract “limits the budgetary autonomy of the State”.

It is common for Chinese creditors to impose repayment clauses on States based on expected infrastructure revenues.

But the Entebbe contract goes further, because the reimbursement clauses relate to all of the airport's revenues, not just those expected from the expansion financed by Beijing, notes Mr. Parks.

The airport, built in 1951, generated annual revenues of around 60 million euros before the expansion works.

The state used part of the funds to finance public services, according to AidData.

Late last year, China and Uganda denied reports that Uganda might have to hand over the airport if the loan was not repaid.

The expansion work, carried out by the state-owned China Communications Construction Company, began in 2016. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

© 2022 AFP