President William Ruto’s administration spent Ksh104 billion to service external debt between July and December 2023.
This was captured in the Quarterly Economic and Budgetary Review released by the National Treasury detailing spending for the first half of the 2023/2024 Financial Year.
According to the review, 18 foreign nations received payments including; Abu Dhabi, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Additionally, Kenya made payments to financial institutions including; the Word Bank and the Asian Development Bank to the tune of Ksh49 billion.
The country also booked commercial loan payments totalling Ksh85 billion.
“By the end of December 2023, the total cumulative debt service payments to external creditors amounted to Ksh 239.6 billion,” the National Treasury reported.
“This comprised of Ksh134.6 billion (56.2 per cent) principal and Ksh105 billion (43.8 per cent) interest.
China received the lion’s share of the repayments at Ksh72 billion. This was in line with an earlier admission by National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo that a similar amount had been paid in relation to the Standard Gauge Railway and other Chinese-sponsored infrastructure projects.
In the European Union, Kenya made sizeable payments to Belgium (Ksh1.3 billion), Denmark (Ksh156 million), Finland (Ksh218 million), France (Ksh13 billion), Germany (Ksh3 billion), Italy (Ksh7.7 billion), Poland (Ksh58 million), Austria (Ksh75 million), and Spain (Ksh1.1 billion).
Kenya further made payments to Gulf Countries including Abu Dhabi (Ksh12 billion), Kuwait (Ksh105 billion) and Saudi Arabia (Ksh179 billion).
The three Gulf countries sold to Kenya fuel on a 180-day credit line under the Government to Government oil deal.
Other countries that Kenya paid after taking out loans from include; India (Ksh733 million), Israel (Ksh540 million), Japan (Ksh3.7 billion), Korea (Ksh143 million) and the United States (Ksh181 million).
While Kenya paid only Ksh181 million to the United States, it paid Ksh32 billion to the International Development Association (IDA), a World Bank subsidiary.
The United States is the World Bank's leading shareholder.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development which is also owned by the World Bank received Ksh3.8 billion.
Other financial institutions that received a huge chunk of loan repayments included; the Asian Development Bank (Ksh10 billion) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) (Ksh622 million).
Interestingly, Kenya did not make any payments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the first half of the 2023/2024 financial year.
