Two international loans, one from the World Bank and another from the International Monetary Fund, give Kenya breathing space at this end of 2023, after the worsening economic situation that has plagued the country for months.

A crisis that, besides weighing on the citizens and especially on the poor people, is also evident to foreigners visiting the country in the fall of the Kenyan shilling against the dollar and the euro, in the increase in petrol prices and in the price of many consumer products. Not to mention products imported from abroad.

The growth of public debt has also created in the government the syndrome of 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' and looking for 'creative' ways to recover liquidity, apart from the necessary and legitimate ones that go from fighting corruption to tax evasion, matters that we Italians know very well.

Among the various reforms and proposed laws, there are also the planned increases in entry visas for tourists, which are expected to double from 50 to 100 dollars from 1 January, and work and residence permits for resident foreigners, which could even increase by one and a half times the current cost.

It is therefore hoped that with the loans granted to the country, described by the World Bank as 'continuously developing' and about which there is optimism for a recovery estimated in three years, the government can curb further increases and taxes.
The IMF said last week that the $682 million loan was granted on the grounds that Kenya will have to honour the first of two repayment instalments of a Eurobond loan totalling $2 billion by the end of this year.
The addition of the new World Bank loan, which estimates to grant Kenya USD 12 billion over the next three years, should temporarily solve the problem.

In fact, President William Ruto, who left yesterday for Germany for an important G20 summit where the African Union was recently added as one nation, has already announced that one of the first moves that the new loans will enable the government to make, will be to lower the price of petrol. 
It is a pity that the decision of the public energy authority EPRA practically contradicted this, deciding to raise excise duties, according to the Daily Nation newspaper.

The Minister of Tourism, Alfred Mutua, on his part is continuing the series of meetings, starting with the immigration office, as he himself confirmed, to try not to disadvantage the tourism and travel sector to Kenya, and it is hoped that the relief (for now) of the country's public debt will make him act according to what is his mandate, that is, to eliminate the entry visa for tourists to Kenya altogether, to make the destination competitive with other similar destinations.