The National Treasury in Kenya faces pressure after wavering on the highly anticipated $1 billion debt-for-food security swap, now openly denying giving an arrangement mandate to Citigroup and further pushing the prospects of the proposed transaction into uncertainty.
In December last year, President William Ruto announced the innovative liability management tool to ease the country’s massive debt service costs – interest payments on domestic and external loans – which are projected at Ksh1.25 trillion ($9.68 billion) in the current financial year, with the government spending about a third of its revenue on interest payment.
