For the second week in a row, the Government of Rwanda has not issued treasury bills (T-bills), signalling that it might have enough cash to meet its short-term obligations and that it doesn’t need to raise additional funds. The government through the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) issues T-bills – short-term debt instruments – through weekly auctions. These instruments usually have tenure of 28 days, 91 days, 182 days and 364 days. Lyna Muganwa Kadigwa, Investment Research Analyst at BK Capital, said it might be due to the recent disbursement of $164.6 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “We suspect that it is due to this disbursement that the BNR is not issuing any T-bills for the past week, and we expect this to go on until the close of the fiscal year (end of June),” she told The New Times. ALSO READ: IMF approves $164m funding to Rwanda The total funding of $164.6 million that Rwanda received from the IMF was approved last month by the IMF’s Board of Governors, following a review of the country’s implementation of the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) and the Standby Credit Facility (SCF). Both the two IMF’s facilities are instruments that provide funding to countries to fight against climate shocks and to help countries with short term balance of payment needs. The Central bank prefers concessional loans than commercial borrowing, reflecting its desire to borrow from the IMF and the World Bank where it gets funding with low interest rates. Muganwa said that could explain why the government has not issued T-bills for two consecutive weeks.
