It was imprudent to entrust Chinese with State House refurbishment

The new look of State House Nairobi after renovations.[PCS] If State House, Nairobi, was a thoroughbred before, it's now a mule. That is the position taken by some Kenyans who can't countenance the new-look State House after the gable tiles roof was pulled down in favour of a flat roof. Conversely, there are many other Kenyans who aver that the new look is chic. Change, it is said, is the only constant thing in life. It is not clear whose idea it was to change the look of the house on the hill. The surprise Kenyans showed when pictures of the edifice emerged confirms that the changes were covert: no advertisement, no public participation nor tendering for the company that undertook the transformation. Did Parliament approve the expenditure? It is debatable whether the current tenant had the right to change the building's design without the landlord's consent. But then, he and the Kenya Kwanza government are not big on fidelity to the Constitution. That, however, is not the sticking point. The gripe is that the renovations made by a Chinese firm expose Kenya to security threats. In 2018, French Newspaper, Le Monde, exposed how China bugged the African Union Commission headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and collected intelligence from offices in the building undetected for five years. The China State Construction Engineering Corporation constructed the building and installed servers provided by China's tech giant Huawei which, unknown to the occupants, eavesdropped on them and sent data to Shanghai, China, on a daily basis. The walls of the building were discovered to have been lined with concealed listening devices. As would be expected, China denied the claim but could not give a plausible explanation for the servers and the listening devices. A 2020 report by the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies linked Huawei to China's military and intelligence agencies. Huawei was also suspected of helping the Uganda government in tracking and arresting Bobi Wine in 2019. Eavesdropping Our State House joins the list of government buildings the Chinese have either built or spruced up in Africa since the 1960s. A common thread with these buildings is that they either house presidential palaces, Parliament buildings, supreme courts or Foreign Affairs ministries; institutions rich in classified information any foreign government could be interested in. It is likely by design, not accident, that the Chinese target these institutions, the aim being to eavesdrop on important matters, which gives China the edge. In 2014, police officers arrested 77 Chinese nationals in an upmarket estate in Nairobi where sophisticated communication equipment was discovered. These individuals were suspected to have been planning to hack the country's communication systems. They had the technology that could infiltrate bank accounts, mobile banking as well as produce microchips for ATM cards. The Chinese also operated an electronic command centre whose activities were not immediately apparent. The matter was left to die off quietly, perhaps in order not to alarm the general populace and upset diplomatic relationships. Much as the Chinese have undertaken massive infrastructural development in Kenya, including the Nairobi Expressway and the Standard Gauge Railway, if history is anything to go by, they cannot be trusted not to bug State House and other critical government structures where they have been allowed access in the guise of doing renovations that Kenyan companies can competently undertake. The Chinese are currently locked in supremacy contests with the Americans and Russians for the unarmed takeover of Africa. African leaders who are supposed to lead the 'Dark Continent' to light are unfortunately the merchants of darkness who abhor light and encourage and fuel the second scramble for Africa. While Africans butcher each other, the Chinese and Americans will grab any opportunity that gives them the advantage to continue their extractive activities in Africa. Part of that edge is listening to our most secret conversations in high places and manipulating our leaders.

It was imprudent to entrust Chinese with State House refurbishment

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