Kenya's debt payments shoot up by Sh27 billion

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich. The Judiciary says he has not released funds for the health cover. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Payment for external loans will increase by Sh1.24 billion, said the PBO, and this is because some lenders refused to adjust payment terms on their loans and asked to be paid when they were due.

  • There has also been an increase of Sh5.1 billion in the payments for domestic debt.

  • With the second Supplementary Budget seeking to increase recurrent expenditure by Sh23.2 billion and reduce development expenditure by Sh40 billion, PBO is of the opinion that the increased spending on debt should be a major concern.

Higher interests on debts and redemptions have pushed up Kenya’s  payments for debts by Sh27.6 billion, forcing Treasury to reduce development spending, according to an analysis of the Supplementary Budget currently before the National Assembly.

Kenya has been forced to pay higher interests on the first Eurobond and loans taken from the Standard Chartered Bank and the Eastern and Southern Africa Trade and Development Bank.

SH89BN INTEREST

Debt repayments are usually budgeted for at the beginning of the financial year and the changes, with just two months to the end of the year, have sparked concerns in the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), the experts who advise MPs on budget issues.

“Development spending is decreasing significantly yet borrowing has increased substantially, raising concerns that borrowed funds could be used to fund recurrent expenditure,” the PBO has said in a report to MPs.

Interests on debts have increased by Sh19.2 billion, from Sh70.5 billion to Sh89.8 billion, because of the adjustment of terms on the first Eurobond, the loan taken from Standard Chartered Bank and another from the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank.

Payment for the first Eurobond will increase by Sh7.53 billion— that of Standard Chartered by Sh4.75 billion and the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank by Sh6.97 billion.

DEBT

Payment for external loans will increase by Sh1.24 billion, said the PBO, and this is because some lenders refused to adjust payment terms on their loans and asked to be paid when they were due.

There has also been an increase of Sh5.1 billion in the payments for domestic debt.

With the second Supplementary Budget seeking to increase recurrent expenditure by Sh23.2 billion and reduce development expenditure by Sh40 billion, PBO is of the opinion that the increased spending on debt should be a major concern.

“Government spending cuts should ideally lead to a reduction in borrowing and total public debt,” the office said, “but we are seeing a trend where expenditure is cut, more so, development expenditure but borrowing and public debt are increasing.”

 The country continues to incur debt, far above the original estimated figure, says the PBO, and this raises concerns that the borrowed funds could be channelled towards recurrent spending, resulting in negligible returns on investment.

PBO warned that with the country just recovering from a challenging economic period because of the lengthy electioneering period, the reduction in development spending is likely to slow down economic recovery.

4.8PC GROWTH

So bad were the economic circumstances that growth of the Gross Domestic Product slowed to 4.8 per cent in 2017.

Revenue collection failed to meet the target by Sh85.9 billion, which Treasury says affected the disbursement of money to both the national government and counties.

By February this year, just four months to the end of the financial year, counties had received 35 per cent, slightly more than a third, of their equitable share of revenue.

The experts concluded that this “raises concerns on whether counties will receive their full amounts.”

“The Constitution provides that a county share of revenue raised by the national government shall be transferred to the county without undue delay and without deduction except if the stoppage is due to serious material breach of public finance management laws,” said the PBO.

In the Supplementary Budget, the second this financial year, the biggest beneficiaries are medical workers, police officers, teachers and university lecturers, whose salaries will be increased as their Collective Bargaining Agreements are honoured..

The Ministry of Health’s budget for recurrent expenditure has been increased by Sh18.1 billion, which is meant to cater for the salaries for health personnel as their CBAs are implemented.

TSC

The Teachers Service Commission will get an additional Sh16.3 billion to increase salaries after job evaluation and to recruit more teachers while the Department for University Education will get Sh5.7 billion to implement the CBA with the striking lecturers and other university staff.

For the police officers’ increased salaries, the Department of Interior has been allocated an additional Sh4 billion.

Had there been proper planning at the start of the financial year, says the PBO, it would not have been necessary to have the budget changed mid-year to increase the salaries.

“It should be noted that during the first supplementary for 2017/18, implementation of agreed CBAs in the education sector was one of the main factors that had necessitated it. The pending CBAs in the health and education sectors were agreed upon much earlier and should have fully been taken care of at the very least by the first supplementary budget,” said PBO.

It said that making implementation of CBAs a recurring matter of the Supplementary Budget when the CBAs were agreed upon early enough destabilises the delivery of services in the public sector because of the constant strikes.