Kenya Begins National Debt Audit To Ascertain Country’s Debt

Kenya’s Finance Minister, John Mbadi, has announced the Auditor General has begun examining the country’s debt records to ascertain amounts owed to the lenders.

This was disclosed on Monday by Mbadi following a media comment made to Reuters, stating the audit has already started.

The announcement, however, was months after the height of the youth-led #rejectFinanceBill protests, which led to President William Ruto’s appointment of a committee to execute the audit.

According to a report, a team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is on a fact-finding missionto find a way forward after the tax protests that halted the Kenyan government’s tax increase.

It is worth noting that the Kenyan government had recently said they expect the IMF board to consider approving the loan disbursement of $600 million, adding to its previous credit tab after reaching an agreement of credit under a Resilience and Sustainability arrangement.

Also, the East African nation’s debt was at 10.5 trillion shillings ($81.71 billion) before the anti-tax protesters demanded a review of the borrowings.

Meanwhile, the youth-led protest, which heavily criticised the government during the wake of the protests, focused on the tax finance bill, which tend to increase taxation to raise funds for the government, but at the expense of Kenyans.

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Mayowa Durosinmi

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Mayowa Durosinmi is a Nigerian investigative reporter for West Africa Weekly with reports focusing on politics, human rights, security and health in West Africa and the Sahel region.

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