The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has extended the limit increase on countries’ cumulative access to funds, allowing more borrowing headroom.
This extension will allow countries such as Kenya, which are on the brink of breaching the normal limit.
The multilateral lender had last year increased the limits for cumulative access to 600 percent of the quota, up from the normal 435 percent, and the annual limit from 145 percent to 200 percent. Quotas refer to a country's share of IMF's resources, with the estimate for Kenya at about Sh100 billion.
“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved on March 4, 2024 an extension until end of 2024 of the temporary increase in normal limits on members’ annual and cumulative access to Fund resources,” the lender said in a statement Tuesday.
The limit caps the maximum amount of loans countries can access from the IMF, and it is normally more than the Special Drawing Rights — IMF currency derived from an average of multiple currencies — quota they can access annually and cumulatively.
Kenya has so far accessed SDR2,051.79 million (Sh378.5 billion), which is 378 percent of the quota, leaving it with a headroom of SDR309.4 million (Sh57.05 billion).
