NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya has little ability to take on new public debt, Finance Minister Njuguna Ndung’u was quoted as saying in the privately-owned Daily Nation newspaper on Wednesday.
In early November, Ndung’u said the government was reducing its pace of borrowing, while pushing to lower its budget deficit target in the 2023/24( July-June) fiscal budget.
“Right now, we don’t have headroom for accumulating debt, so in a sense, we have to go down into liability management,” the newspaper quoted Ndung’u as saying.
“When you are buffeted by multiple shocks, the reaction is often to use the resources that you have or even borrow to overcome the crisis.”
Public debt shot up under the administration of President William Ruto’s predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, which oversaw an infrastructure construction drive.
Also earlier this month, Ruto said the government would no longer borrow money at interest rates of more than 10%, saying the cost of debt had become unacceptable.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Kim Coghill)
