Tuesday March 25, 2025
Kenya's Finance Minister John Mbadi gestures during an interview with Reuters where he says Kenya has started talks with IMF for a new program, in Nairobi, Kenya, February 5, 2025. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Missed disbursements from the International Monetary Fund complicate the Kenyan government's strategy of lowering its debt-servicing costs and could delay other funding, ratings agency S&P said on Monday.
Kenya and the International Monetary Fund agreed last week to skip the ninth and final review of the current programme, leaving roughly $800 million on the table.
"Since IMF funding often serves as a catalyst for other official and private flows, we expect there might be delays to World Bank (about $800 million) and United Arab Emirates (UAE; $1.5 billion) funding in first-half 2025," S&P said in a statement, adding:
"In the meantime, the government has built up sufficient foreign exchange reserves of about $10 billion and could plug immediate concessional financing shortfalls with domestic funding or other commercial facilities, albeit at a much higher cost.Kenya's Finance Minister John Mbadi said the government had already applied for a new IMF programme, and has said that the World Bank loan was not related to the IMF money, but was conditional on other requirements, such as passing a conflict of interest bill that the government is finalizing.
Reporting By Libby George and Duncan Miriri, editing by Karin Strohecker