Prophets of doom are missing the point

In the run-up to the 2017 General Election, critics of the Jubilee administration had a field day criticising the level of Kenya’s public debt. I submit that this was fraudulent political talk with no sound economic grounding. Now that we are done with the politics, we must set the record straight on all these false alarms.

The fact of the matter is that Kenya’s risk of external debt distress remains low, while overall public sector debt dynamics continue to be sustainable. It is true that public debt has risen in recent years, while revenue margins have generally narrowed, but we shall revisit why this is the natural order of things.