President William Ruto’s administration has successfully reduced the government’s debt by Ksh380 billion, bringing it down to Ksh10.87 trillion as of February 2024.

This significant achievement was highlighted in the weekly bulletin released by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) on Friday, May 3.

Remarkably, this marks the first instance of negative growth in the national debt since June 2022.

In June 2023, Kenya’s national debt had surpassed the Ksh10 trillion milestone, reaching Ksh10.9 trillion by November 2023.

Kenya’s debt rose to a historical high of Ksh11.1 trillion and despite Ruto’s assurance that the country was on a good trajectory economically, the debt hit another record on January 2024 of 11.2 trillion. 

Between December 2023 and January 2024, Ruto made a series of huge payments to international creditors which resulted in the decrease of the national debt. 

Some of the key payments were made towards Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as well as repayment of the Eurobond floated in 2014. 

Ruto’s administration further retired a Ksh70 billion matured infrastructure bond. 

In July 2024, the debt is supposed to lower further as Kenya is expected to pay USD500 million as part of the SGR loan. 

Of the current Ksh10.87 trillion debt, Ksh5.2 trillion of the total sum is domestic debt. 

President William Ruto’s administration has prioritised local borrowing over external debt. 

Kenya has a Ksh5.7 trillion public and publicly guaranteed debt with the largest creditors being China, World Bank subsidiaries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).