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Inside Ruto’s plan to ‘liberate’ 4 million Kenyans blacklisted on CRB

By Winnie Onyando September 28th, 2022 1 min read

President William Ruto has said that his government has nothing against Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) but that he intends to upgrade it.

Speaking on Wednesday during a function that brought together NCBA, Safaricom and KCB, President Ruto said more than four million Kenyans are suffering and cannot access loans because they have been blacklisted by CRB.

“Instead of blacklisting borrowers we can have a graduated listing of borrowers based on how they have borrowed and how they have paid back,” President Ruto said.

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The president also reiterated his government’s commitment to making life better for ‘hustlers’ who voted for him.

He said the government will come up with a system that will enable those who take loans to be graded based on their borrowing information instead of being blacklisted.

“We are not against CRBs, we are just changing the model,” he said.

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The president further said the four million borrowers who have been blacklisted on CRB will be ejected from the negative listing by November 1.

“We want to announce that Kenyans who have been blacklisted will be ejected early November. We have realized that many Kenyans are trapped in CRB. We want to assure our people that things will get better,” Ruto said.

CRB is an agency that collects data on loans issued by lending institutions and consequently creates reports (known as credit reports) on a borrower’s current and past loans.

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