James Mworia, the chief executive Officer of NIF, said the fund targets investment in long-term government papers with yields of about 12 percent to 14 percent annually.

“The National Infrastructure Fund Act allows us to invest in government securities. The yield we are expecting to get there is about 12.5 percent in annual return and so we should be making just about Sh42 billion worth of income per year so we are working with Sh40 billion as a benchmark,” he said at an event to mark the Africa Capital Week 2026 in Nairobi.

“The idea is to ensure that we preserve the seed capital because there are limited assets that can be privatised.”

The official said that generating at least Sh40 billion in annual income and working with an investment crowd-in factor of 1:10 would help ease the development budget pressure on the Treasury.

A crowd-in factor, which is also referred to as a leverage factor, is a multiplier that measures how much additional private or external investment is attracted by a single unit of public or anchor investment.

In this case, the NIF’s target is that for every Sh1 from the fund, it would mobilise an additional Sh10 from private capital holders such as pension funds.

Between the financial years 2021/22 and 2026/27, Kenya’s development spending budget has averaged Sh680.74 billion, with the highest allocation being in 2026/27 at Sh844.4 billion.

Through the fund, President William Ruto’s government wants to mobilise up to Sh5 trillion by crowding in private capital by leveraging up to Sh10 for every shilling invested.

“If we do our job well as the National Infrastructure Fund, then we should easily take out just about Sh400 billion from the national budget because then we will reduce reliance on the Exchequer for commercially viable infrastructure projects,” Mr Mworia said.

“So right now, what’s happening is that any infrastructure project that is being taken to the National Treasury and considered to be commercially viable is then routed to my team and me at the National Infrastructure Fund. In fact, there were a few projects that were directed to us over the weekend of September 5 and 6, 2026,” he said.

The fund is earmarked to take an equity stake in the upcoming Dangote Refinery in Lamu and deploy capital in the upgrade and expansion of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) via a special purpose vehicle.

“The National Infrastructure Fund can invest in special purpose vehicles. So, for example, the airport upgrade project will be a specific special purpose vehicle, and we already have commitment for all the debt required to finance it and so that is already done, and now we are left with the equity portion which we are looking at around 30 percent from the National Infrastructure Fund,” Mr Mworia said.

He added that NIF would set up a sub-fund listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) to address risks of a potential asset-liability mismatch in fund managers and pension funds deploying a portion of their assets under management to infrastructure as an asset class.

“One of the solutions I have in mind to address the asset-liability mismatch risks is that we create a National Infrastructure Development Fund which can borrow from the regulation of development real estate investment trusts. This will then allow investors to come into a liquid instrument and automatically address the asset-liability mismatch concerns,” Mr Mworia said.

“You will also have addressed the challenge of political perception risk because if investors come directly into National Infrastructure Fund-financed projects, some will argue that it borders on privatisation via the backdoor, but with a vehicle that is listed, all investors can come in transparently.”

According to the NIF’s Investment Policy Statement before the National Assembly, it will be deploying capital in national highways, railway networks, airports, seaports, electricity infrastructure, ICT infrastructure, water reservoirs and agribusiness infrastructure.

The NIF board can invest through such projects via a number of ways, including direct investment, equity stakes, debt, project finance, special purpose vehicles, infrastructure funds, and pooled investment vehicles.

The NIF investment in government securities signals a domestic funding boon for the Treasury, which is already tapping into billions from the national housing levy collection.

Billions of shillings left unspent from housing levy collection has been temporarily invested in Treasury bills –interest-earning government securities that mature between three and 12 months. Disclosures by the Auditor-General, Nancy Gathungu, showed that the Affordable Housing Fund, as at June 2025, invested Sh45.48 billion in T-bills.