The Nation (Nairobi)
Justus Ondari
8 July 2009
Nairobi — The government is set to request the World Bank for an annual $1 billion (Sh80 billion) commitment during Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta's US "familiarisation" meeting next week.
A government delegation headed by Mr Kenyatta, who is also the deputy prime minister, will be meeting senior officials of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from July 13-15 in Washington.
"It is a familiarisation tour because, for example, the minister (Mr Kenyatta) has not yet met the World Bank president," said Treasury Permanent Secretary, Joseph Kinyua.
The meeting was scheduled for earlier in the year but Treasury officials could not make it because they were busy preparing Budget estimates.
"We will inform them that the current assistance they give us is not adequate if we are to be able to tackle the challenges we are facing, especially on infrastructure development," Mr Kinyua said on Wednesday.
He was speaking after Mr Kenyatta and Swedish ambassador to Kenya, Anna Brandt, signed a Sh3.5 billion per year 5-year development cooperation agreement at Treasury building.
"We need the funds almost immediately to finance our key development programmes under Vision 2030," he said while noting that the bank currently gives the country between $200 million (Sh16 billion) and $250 million (Sh20 billion) per year.
To illustrate the enormity of the task, he singled out the energy sector, which aims to boost its production capacity to 3,000MW in three years from the current 1,000MW at a cost of $80 billion.
In this year's Sh867 billion budget he unveiled on June 11, which has a Sh109 billion deficit, the minister increased development expenditure by 82.6 per cent to 258.9 billion up from Sh141.8 billion in the 2008/09 fiscal year.
Most of the funds are earmarked for infrastructure development with the road sector taking Sh50.5 billion, followed by Sh30.6 billion for energy, and Sh24.7 billion on water and irrigation.
Mr Kinyua said the government delegation would seek the commitment under the International Development Association (IDA), which is an arm of the World Bank that aims to reduce poverty.
It provides soft-term credits and grants for programmes that boost economic growth, reduce inequalities and improve people's living conditions.
"We are optimistic that we will get something substantial even if we do not get the full $1 billion commitment because we have a good relationship with the bank," said the PS.
He noted that the bank has given the country about $550 million (Sh4.2 billion) in concessional loans since it appointed Mr Johannes Zutt as its country director for Kenya in January this year.
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