US foreign policy, Kenya, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Africa, World news, Haiti Business | The Guardian
Kenya’s eruption of protests, riots and government repression is the result of decades of failed western financial prescriptionsIt took several days of peaceful popular uprisings, violent confrontations with the police and the army, the illegal arrests and detention of protesters, the tragic death of several protesters at the hands of state security forces, and the burning of its parliament building for the Kenyan government to finally withdraw a finance bill that would have imposed the most extreme form of austerity in Kenya’s history.Protesters held signs directly blaming the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for last year’s increases in VAT taxes, fuel and food prices, and for the new tax hikes proposed in the now defunct 2024 finance bill. This was in fact what the IMF has imposed on Kenya under the 2021 loan agreement for a 38-month program unlocking $3.9bn subject to periodic reviews designed to verify that Kenya is actually doing what the IMF wants: to increase taxes, reduce subsidies and cut government waste (a code word for privatisation of state owned enterprises).Fadhel Kaboub is a senior advisor with Power Shift Africa and a member of the Independent Expert Group on Just Transition and Development. He is the author of Global South Perspectives on Substack Continue reading…
Kenya’s eruption of protests, riots and government repression is the result of decades of failed western financial prescriptions
It took several days of peaceful popular uprisings, violent confrontations with the police and the army, the illegal arrests and detention of protesters, the tragic death of several protesters at the hands of state security forces, and the burning of its parliament building for the Kenyan government to finally withdraw a finance bill that would have imposed the most extreme form of austerity in Kenya’s history.
Protesters held signs directly blaming the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for last year’s increases in VAT taxes, fuel and food prices, and for the new tax hikes proposed in the now defunct 2024 finance bill. This was in fact what the IMF has imposed on Kenya under the 2021 loan agreement for a 38-month program unlocking $3.9bn subject to periodic reviews designed to verify that Kenya is actually doing what the IMF wants: to increase taxes, reduce subsidies and cut government waste (a code word for privatisation of state owned enterprises).
Fadhel Kaboub is a senior advisor with Power Shift Africa and a member of the Independent Expert Group on Just Transition and Development. He is the author of Global South Perspectives on Substack
