Vice-President criticises donor loan terms

Vice-President George Saitoti on Tuesday blamed a high failure rate of foreign-funded projects on misplaced donor demands and their alleged insistence on buying supplies from their home countries. Speaking at the start of a workshop on development policy issues in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Saitoti urged donors to involve recipient countries in formulating loan conditions instead of imposing the terms on them. “Developing countries have little choice in the matter since the money is given at competitive rates,” he added. Saitoti also called on donors to apply the same stringent conditions the NGOs they funded as to recipient governments, especially since NGOs had become increasingly important conduits for donor funding.