Kenya: The National Debt. Are We About to Go Bust?

analysis

Economic numbers can look scary and sound positively terminal when not probably understood. Trillion-shilling debt here. Hundred-billion shillings deficit there. Big, scary, numbers everywhere. They get even more scary when some respected economists dishonestly use them and put a spin to give the impression that the country is in a very precarious position and is perhaps on the verge of bankruptcy. It borders on intellectual dishonesty and is unfair to the public when for example people who should know better claim that Kenya rescheduled a $600m bank loan for another three months because it was 'broke'.

This despite the fact the country has more than 10 times that amount in reserves that it could use to pay off that loan if it wanted to. Was some of the proceeds of the proposed Eurobond not supposed to retire these bank loans? So how does a timing issue and a simple debt management strategy make one conclude that the country is broke? There has been a lot of negative remarks on the state of our national debt. Is debt about to kill us as recent newspaper headlines and comments from some of our economists would want us to believe? What is our national debt situation like? Do the facts and figures support the views of those claiming we are choking with debt? Let us examine the same.

...

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.