IMF Managing Director Christalina Giorgieva. Photo| Courtesy.
The officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are currently in Kenya to evaluate the country’s eligibility for a loan of 600 million Kenyan shillings.
This comes ahead of its meeting to approve disbursement of the said loan to fund development programs in Kenya.
Notably, IMF is visiting Kenya months after a heated anti-finance bill protests which sent Kenya’s tax bill parking. The protesters demanded accountability in state departments which according to them, are full of corruption.
The IMF Communication Department noted that Kenya is facing financial instability caused by the withdrawal of the 2024/25 finance bill.However, the Brentwood lender is side with Kenya’s constitutional procedure of conducting public participation before undertaking any financial policy changes.
According to Kenya’s (2010) constitution, every policy or bill must be brought before the public to scrutinize and understand its impact and give their views and suggestions.
“The program includes initiatives to improve governance and transparency and to ensure the proper use, to ensure the responsible use of public funds. But it is also important that these policies go through a process of broad consultation so that they can gain the necessary public support,” IMF said.
IMF was accused by Kenyans for taking part in drafting of the controversial finance bill.
For context, IMF requires member states to meet certain policies including tax policies and revenue estimates that a country must collect for it to get loans and to improve credit rating.
However some of these policies have been termed “harsh” for a country like Kenya which is grappling with debt repayment to a tune of 10.6 trillion Kenya shillings as of June 2024.
With IMF officials in Kenya, what remains to be seen is their next move after the IMF-backed finance bill was rejected, leading to a huge budget deficit in the current fiscal year 2024/25.
