Exclusive-Kenya in talks for fresh $750 million from World Bank, $200 million from AfDB, says official

By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenya has secured a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank and is in talks with the World Bank for a new $750 million loan, the finance ministry’s head of debt management told Reuters.

The East African nation’s government, which has been struggling with heavy debt, has been scrambling for new financing after deadly protests in June forced it to scrap planned tax hikes worth more than 346 billion shillings ($2.68 billion).

Raphael Owino, the director general of the Finance Ministry’s public debt management office, told Reuters that the IMF’s October approval of the seventh and eighth reviews, which paved the way for a $606 million loan tranche, had helped in its discussions for other lending.

“The World Bank is coming on board, riding on the back of IMF receipts,” Owino said. “The AfDB is already on board.”

A spokesperson in the World Bank’s Kenya office confirmed the talks for new funding, which fell under its “Development Policy Operations” (DPO) with the government.

“The amount of the current (loan) is yet to be determined. The amount will also depend on the implementation of the policy reforms agreed upon,” the spokesperson told Reuters, adding that past DPO loans averaged about $750 million.

The World Bank signed off on the most recent set of DPO loans, worth a total of $1.2 billion, in May.

Kenya has set the foreign borrowing target for the financial year to the end of June 2025 at 168 billion shillings, Finance Minister John Mbadi said last month.

($1 = 129.0000 Kenyan shillings)