The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday it held productive discussions with the Kenyan government on its plans to address the fiscal challenges, after countywide protests against Finance Bill, 2024.
The protests forced President William Ruto to abandoned the bill in June, in which the state had planned to collect Ksh.340 Billion – leaving the heavily indebted government with a bigger budget deficit for this financial year.
“We remain fully committed to support the authorities on their efforts to identify a set of policies that could support the completion of the reviews under the ongoing program as soon as feasible,” the IMF said in a statement.
in 2021, Kenya struck a four-year loan deal with the IMF.
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It also signed up for additional lending to support climate change measures in May 2023, taking its total IMF loan access to $3.6 billion.
Kenya reached a staff level agreement with the IMF in June on the seventh review of its programme, but the protest and ensuing withdrawal of the finance bill put a sign-off by the fund’s executive board, and subsequent payout, on hold.
