The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday announced it would maintain its freeze of funding to Kenya in the wake of parliament's rejection of a controversial anti-graft bill.
"Following the action in the National Assembly, International Monetary Fund ... will not be able to complete the review of performance under the first annual program that covered fiscal year 2000/01 or complete the negotiation of the second annual programme for 2001/02," a statement issued by the IMF's resident representative here, Samuel Itam, said.
In plain English, this means no more money for a while from the Bretton Woods institution, whose decisions tend to influence those of other, often more substantial donors.
The IMF had in August last year approved a 242 million dollar financial support for Kenya under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility.
Of this, 43 million dollars has been released, 21 million dollars remains on hold for the current fiscal year while 61 million dollars was originally slated to be released in the next fiscal year.
The remaining money had been due for release in the third fiscal year.
The IMF halted disbursements in January, saying Kenya had not done enough to fight corruption.
On Tuesday parliament threw out a bill ostensibly designed to ressurrect the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority. The opposition and some members of the ruling party described the bill as fatally flawed and accused the government of only paying lip service to the fight against graft. |
