The expansion of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) will be the first project financed through the National Infrastructure Fund.
The announcement follows the signing of the National Infrastructure Fund Bill into law by President William Ruto on Monday.
The airport project was previously awarded to India’s Adani Group, following its public-private partnership proposal. The deal, which became public in 2024, sparked intense public debate over transparency, procurement procedures and long-term control of the strategic infrastructure.
Speaking at the State House in Nairobi, after assenting to the law, President Ruto said the airport project would be backed by equity from the new fund.
“The expansion of the airport will be structured with roughly Sh20 billion in equity participation from the National Infrastructure Fund and domestic institutional investors,” he said, hailing the new law as “a new way to finance our development”.
The President said mobilising domestic capital would address challenges arising from heavy reliance on foreign financing, including mismatched investment horizons and currency risks.
“When infrastructure is financed in foreign currency while revenues are earned in Kenya shillings, exchange rate volatility introduces significant risk,” he said, noting that this challenge has long affected sectors such as electricity.
The infrastructure fund, he said, provides a mechanism to channel long-term domestic savings directly into infrastructure investment.
According to Dr Ruto, the goal is to leverage the fund’s capital at least 12 times, mobilising up to Sh1.2 trillion for infrastructure projects, and potentially reaching Sh5 trillion over the next decade.
The law, the President added, establishes strong governance safeguards, including a governing council responsible for strategic oversight, a professional and independent board and parliamentary oversight of investment policies to ensure transparency, accountability and prudent stewardship of public resources.
“The statute allows the National Infrastructure Fund to leverage the technical expertise of development finance institutions of which Kenya is a member,” said President Ruto.
The law is designed to mobilise private capital from non-traditional sources, including domestic pension funds, collective investment schemes, sovereign wealth funds and climate finance. It also aims to reduce reliance on public debt for commercially viable infrastructure projects.
Funds will be drawn from proceeds of privatisation, sales of shares in government-linked corporations and investments undertaken by the fund.
President Ruto said that the fund is not an experiment, citing successful models in Nigeria, Ghana, India, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa.
He stated that heavy reliance on sovereign debt has historically made it difficult to finance mega-projects while maintaining economic stability.
Deputy President Kithure Kindiki described the fund as “the first and most significant step towards Kenya’s economic freedom”.
“The entirely Kenyan fund will be built on proceeds of privatisation and divestiture, each shilling attracting 10 shillings of private sector investment,” Prof Kindiki said. “It will finance crucial infrastructure projects that are both vital for economic transformation and commercially viable.”
Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said the fund will fast-track major projects without raising the debt burden and that the model was informed by lessons from other jurisdictions including.
He added that the Act fulfils a key promise in the Kenya Kwanza manifesto.
