Kenya to pay first instalment of Ksh.304B Eurobond in December - President Ruto

President William Ruto has announced that Kenya will in December this year pay the first instalment of a USD 2 billion (Ksh.304B) Eurobond, in the sum of USD 300 million instalment (Ksh.45.6 billion).

Delivering his first State of the Nation Address since assuming office, President Ruto ceded that Kenya's long history of borrowing had shut out the country's public sector from financial markets essentially escalating the cost of credit while impeding trade and commerce.

He pointed out that after assuming office, the Kenya Kwanza administration was forced to make tough economic decisions in order to stabilise and augment the country's plummeting economic outlook. These efforts, he stated, are finally starting to pay dividends.  

"We have worked hard at home and abroad to mobilise a broad coalition of bilateral development partners to bring our country back from the brink of debt distress and set us today firmly on the path towards sustainable economic growth," he said.

"Our efforts to stabilise the situation have yielded such progress that next month in December we will be able to settle the first Ksh.300 million dollars instalment of the USD2 billion eurobond debt that falls due next year. I can now confirm with confidence that we will pay and shall pay the debt."

The President added that owing to Kenya's consistent and sustained efforts to clear its burgeoning public debt, Nairobi's relationship with global lending entities such as the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank and the Africa Development Bank has improved for the betterment of all Kenyans.

"We must admit that as a country we had been living large and way beyond our means. The time has come to retire the false comforts and visionary benefits of wasteful expenditure and counterproductive subsidies on consumption by which we dug ourselves deeper into the hole of avoidable debt," said Ruto.

"The new direction may not be easy but it is ethical, responsible prudent and necessary. We've had to take hard decisions and make painful choices because we owe it to Kenyans to do the right thing and confront facts as they are without flinching."