Kenya's Sh13 Trillion Debt: Treasury Data Complicates Ruto's Borrowing Claims
A Standard analysis of Treasury figures suggests the government borrowed significantly more than the President has publicly acknowledged.
INFINITY254 MEDIA
Columnist · 13 September 2026, 2:00 PM EAT
President Ruto has made a habit of telling Kenyans that he inherited a debt crisis and has been more restrained than his predecessors in borrowing. Treasury data now tells a more complicated story — one that the Standard newspaper's economics desk has spent three weeks untangling.
Kenya's total public debt stood at approximately Sh13.1 trillion as at end of August 2026, according to National Treasury figures reviewed by Infinity254 Media. The Ruto administration has been in office for four years, a period during which the debt stock grew by an estimated Sh3.2 trillion — roughly equivalent to Kenya's entire annual budget.
Treasury officials argue that much of the new borrowing refinanced existing expensive debt at lower rates — a net improvement in the debt composition even if the headline number rose. They point to a successful Eurobond buyback in 2024 and two domestic T-bond auctions that attracted strong appetite as evidence of improving fiscal credibility.
But economists are not entirely satisfied. "Refinancing explains some of it. It does not explain all of it," said economist David Ndii, one of the architects of Ruto's 2022 economic manifesto who has since become one of the government's most trenchant critics. "The structural deficit — what we spend minus what we collect, excluding debt repayment — remains very high. That is the real number."
The IMF has maintained its program with Kenya, with the latest tranche disbursed in June after the government met most structural benchmarks. But the Fund has continued to flag the pace of debt accumulation as a risk, particularly given Kenya's exposure to external shocks including dollar strength and global commodity prices.
Opposition leaders are running hard on the debt issue. "Every Kenyan child is born today owing Sh240,000 to creditors they have never heard of. That is William Ruto's economic legacy," said Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, who featured the statistic prominently in his Sunday Linda Mwananchi address.