During Kenya’s weeks-long protests, protesters have not only directed their ire against the government but also against institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
For years, multilateral lenders, especially the IMF, have had bad reputations in African countries for providing loans to vulnerable countries based on stringent conditions that critics said have always disproportionately affected the poor.
African leaders, including Ruto, have also criticised international lenders for what they said are unusually high interest rates compared with other developing countries.
In Kenya, that anger is fresh because Ruto’s now-withdrawn tax hikes as well as similar legislation passed in 2023 are both linked to IMF loans as Kenya staggers under the weight of a heavy debt crisis.
While some of the complaints against the IMF are true, African leaders are often to blame, Dumebi Oluwole, an economist with the data intelligence start-up Stears, told Al Jazeera.
The higher interest rates, she said, are often because of records of default. The stringent conditions from lenders like the IMF have also been applied to distressed countries elsewhere, like Greece, which went through an economic crisis in 2009 and was partly bailed out by the lender, but African leaders often rely on options that hurt the majority, she said,
“African leaders are the sellouts,” she said. “We all know that IMF loans come with conditions, but some leaders, when asked to raise revenue, will choose taxation rather than cut costs. Then they’ll blame the IMF. Someone can only dangle crumbs in your face when you don’t know how to cook.”
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