NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenya wants its next International Monetary Fund programme to be a funded one, its central bank governor said on Wednesday, ahead of an IMF visit next month to discuss a new programme request.
In March, Kenya and the IMF abandoned the final review of the East African nation’s last support programme, and Kenya did not receive the last batch of its $3.6 billion Extended Fund Facility and Extended Credit Facility, worth $800 million.
Kenya had struggled to rein in its fiscal deficit and boost revenue collection under the programme, two of the main requirements of the IMF, after it was forced to scrap planned tax hikes because of deadly nationwide protests.
The consensus among financial analysts is that Kenya needs a new loan from the IMF to anchor external debt repayments.
But given its difficulties meeting IMF targets under the last programme some had thought the country could opt for a non-funded programme next time around.
“Our preference will be to have a funded programme, and that is what we have expressed to the IMF board,” Governor Kamau Thugge told a press conference, a day after the central bank cut its benchmark lending rate for the seventh meeting running.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa;Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri;Editing by Alexander Winning, Alexandra Hudson)
