A typing error by the National Treasury has cost Kenyans Sh8.6 billion in debt repayment.
This was after the sum was included as part of repayment for a non-existent loan to the United Kingdom.
The Treasury paid Sh8.6 billion in interest to the UK, bringing the total bilateral debt service to Sh41 billion, according to the first Quarterly Economic and Budgetary Review.
Despite having discharged direct loans owed to its previous colonial ruler, the United Kingdom, in June 2020 after wiring Sh35.3 million to London, Kenya has not taken on any new debt from the United Kingdom.
Officials claimed the sum was expected to be under Eurobond interest payments for the 10 and 30-year bonds borrowed in 2018, but it raised issues about the Treasury’s data accuracy.
This resurrected the infamous typing error that might have resulted in an additional Sh9.2 billion being added to a supplementary budget presented to Parliament by Uhuru Kenyatta in 2009, while he was Finance Minister.
“There is a misclassification of debt service on the table; it should be Eurobond payment, not UK debt,” a Treasury source who did not want to be identified stated.
After Business Daily questioned the entry suggesting the country had paid the Sh8.6 billion to the UK, the Treasury removed the Quarterly Economic and Budgetary Review from its website.
Kenya cleared direct loans owed to the UK, its old colonial master, for the first time since independence in June last year. The UK has recently modified how it lends to poor countries.
