Kenya, which is among Africa’s heavy borrowers accumulating a huge portfolio especially due to lending from China to fund infrastructure projects will not get debt relief for the year 2020.
The country failed to appear on the list of 25 countries that will get debt relief from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Today, I am pleased to say that our Executive Board approved immediate debt service relief to 25 of the IMF’s member countries under the IMF’s revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) as part of the Fund’s response to help address the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva in a statement.
The 19 African countries listed are Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DRC, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
Kenya, which is a lower middle-income country, has recently joined calls to rich nations like China and Group of 20 (G20) countries to waiver debt interest payment in 2020 due to the COVID-19.
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