Of the new IMF lending $415 million comes from the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and Expanded Credit Facility (ECF) programmes that were first agreed with President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2021 and designed to shore up the economy and boost Kenya's foreign exchange reserves...

Having inherited a debt burden running at 68% of GDP compared to the record low of 38% bequeathed to former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto by Mwai Kibaki's government in 2012 and a debt repayment burden that is frontloaded in 2023 and 2024 Ruto has chosen belt-tightening...

Monica Juma foreign minister and energy minister during Uhuru Kenyatta's presidency was one of the few senior officials to be retained by Ruto and remains influential as national security adviser (AC Vol 63 No 20 Loyalty trumps all in Ruto's cabinet)...

In Kenya President William Ruto argues that he was handed a dismal set of public accounts by predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta marked by expensive infrastructure projects and a steeply rising debt burden...

That is more likely than a repeat of the 2018 'handshake' between Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta...

Ruto contends – with some justification – that he inherited a rotten set of public finances from Uhuru Kenyatta's government in August including billions of dollars of loan-financed infrastructure spending the most notorious being the China-financed Standard Gauge Railway (AC Vol 64 No 7 Ruto gets the freight train blues)...