President William Ruto has said Kenya is on course to detangle itself from the debt burden that has hung around its neck for decades.
In a televised address to the nation from State House, the President said for every Sh100 the government collects in taxes, Sh61 go into paying off the country’s debt.
“We have paid Kenya’s Eurobond debt that was borrowed in 2014 of $2 billion dollars that has been hanging around our neck. We paid the last instalment of $500 million last week,” Ruto said.
Ruto said given the sustained commitment to rid itself of the debt burden, the country’s debt obligation is today much less and more sustainable.
“And we are on course to redeem the country from the discomfort of debt and assert our sovereignty,” the President said.
Ruto said part of the measures to reduce the debt obligation has been efforts to reduce expenditure where the National Treasury slashed the 2024-25 budget from the initial Sh4.1 trillion to Sh3.99 trillion.
He said the contentious Finance Bill, 2024, which he has since declined to sign, was to raise Sh346 billion of additional revenue to bolster government’s debt repayment efforts.
However, the President noted, the Finance committee made concessions to the Bill after public participation and dropped some contentious clauses thereby reducing the envisioned revenue target to Sh200 billion.
"I had made this proposal taking into account our situation and priotities that were there," Ruto said.
He listed Agriculture and the hiring of 46,000 junior secondary school teachers on permanent and pensionable basis as among the prioties that informed the tax proposals in the Bill.
"We are very clear in our minds that education being athe greatest equaliser, no child in Kenya should go to school without a teacher or where there are no adequate teachers," the President said.
With the Finance Bill, 2024 now withdrawn, these priorities lie in limbo.
