After a loan of $ 750 million received last week from the World Bank, Kenya is already planning to apply for a new facility with the international institution in the fourth quarter of this year.
According to the World Bank Vice President for Africa, Hafez Ghanem, the funds released will be used to finance affordable housing, agriculture and development projects, without giving more details on the new facility that will be negotiated.
“This is a very common source of funding, that we have not done this kind of funding for Kenya for a long time. The government and the bank have reached an agreement on what we consider to be a very strong and credible economic program, “said Ghanem.
Only since the beginning of the year, Kenya has used a syndicated loan of $ 1.25 billion and raised a $ 2.1 million Eurobond. Public debt has more than doubled since 2013 to stand at $ 52.8 billion in March, according to data from the central bank. Debt service costs reached 33.4% of revenues, compared to 23.5% in 2013.
It should be noted, however, that the Treasury has set itself the target of reducing the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2022, compared with about 6.8% of GDP for the year ended June 30th.
