Kenya in new talks for $750 million from World Bank, $200 million from AfDB

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya has received a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank and is in talks with the World Bank about a new $750 million loan, the head of debt management told Reuters.

The embattled government has been seeking new funding after deadly protests in June forced the scrapping of a planned tax hike that would have cost more than R346 billion ($2.68 billion).

Raphael Owino, director-general of the public debt management office at the Ministry of Finance, told Reuters that the IMF’s approval in October of the seventh and eighth revisions, which paved the way for a $606 million loan, had helped in its negotiations for further lending.

“The World Bank is coming in, riding on the back of IMF receipts,” Owino said. “The AfDB is already there.”

($1 = 129.0000 Kenyan shillings)