The Kenyan taxpayer is still in 2024 shouldering the burden of a loan taken by the Late President Daniel Moi in 2000 from the French government.
Following the disastrous El Nino rains of 1997/1998, the late President approached the French Development Agency for a Ksh1.9 billion loan.
The money was supposed to be used to rehabilitate infrastructure that had been destroyed by the heavy rains.
Kenya has been making annual payments ever since with the last payment expected to be made on April 30, 2025.
For the 2022/2023 Financial Year, Kenya wired Ksh118 million to the French government towards repayment of the loan.
According to the Public Debt Stock External Debt Register for the 2022/2023 financial year, Ksh236 million is remaining to clear the loan.
An analysis of the debt register as of June 30, 2023, shows that Kenya went into a borrowing spree between 1998 and 2002 when Moi relinquished power.
In 1998 when the El Nino rains were intensifying, Kenya took a multibillion shillings loan from the International Development Association (IDA) for the El Nino Emergency Project. Kenya has been repaying the cash ever since with the burden supposed to end in 2038.
Moi further took out a Ksh26 million loan from the Africa Development Fund (ADF) for the rehabilitation of El Nino's damaged infrastructure which the country is servicing plus interest until 2058.
Of note, another loan of Ksh1 billion was taken from ADF for the same purpose in January 1999 and Kenyan taxpayers are still servicing the amount.
Despite borrowing to rehabilitate infrastructure damaged by El Nino, Moi’s administration further took four multibillion shillings loans from the Government of Germany for the reinstatement of the Garsen-Lamu road. The amount will be paid until 2049.
It is not clear what the amounts were used for as former President Uhuru Kenyatta would take another loan 21 years later to construct the 114-kilometre road.
In his last three years in power, Moi also borrowed from the governments of Spain, Japan, Italy and China as well as from multiple international lenders.
