Kenya National Debt now over half of GDP

Kenya is heavily in debt; granted it is not the only East African country to find itself neck deep in debt but it certainly is the only one trying to raise the debt ceiling, every subsequent administration. Last year, President Kenyatta appointed a new economist to lead the country’s National Treasury and just like his predecessor, his first order of business was to seek constitutional amendment so that the country could borrow more. As of October 2019, Kenya’s legislators had been swayed to raise the country’s debt ceiling to USD 84.5 billion (Sh9 trillion). All is good when the money is flowing in, but when the roosters come home to roost and the cash flow takes an outward projector, the weight of it all starts to sink in. That is where Kenya has found itself—smack in the middle of paying a whopping USD8.5 billion (Sh904.7 billion) in debt servicing. Even though they approved the new debt ceiling, Kenya’s parliament is not very happy about the hefty repayments. In fact, as stated earlier, Kenya’s parliament has been raising the debt ceiling, for one reason or another, almost every five years; interestingly that is almost every election year. Kenya's media points out