Early next year, the Raila Odinga International Stadium, built at a cost of Sh55 billion will be launched with much extravagance and marketed as an engineering and architectural masterpiece.
It has been built by the Chinese whose state and private firms have dominated major infrastructural projects in Kenya in the last 15 years. Typically, the Kenyatta and Ruto government have refused to publiciSe the contracts that underpin these multibillion projects for public and legislative scrutiny.
Increasingly, Turkish, Lebanese, Israeli and French firms have also joined the lucrative gravy train. Chinese and other foreign firms have been awarded ongoing contracts such as the Rironi Mau Summit toll road, upgrades and renovations of the Nairobi State House, Bomas of Kenya, Mombasa and Lamu ports, JKIA and Narok Airport, proposed Naivasha to Malaba SGR line, Galana Kulalu irrigation works, the proposed 60 storey NSSF complex, Nairobi viaduct and the proposed Nairobi city light railway.
After the dust settles following the hosting of next year’s continental football tournament, old and legitimate questions regarding who, actually, benefits from these foreign dominated engineering projects will resume. Have Kenyan engineers of all calibers, insurers, financial institutions, transporters and firms reaped, meaningfully from these overpriced and glittering behemoths or has most of the monies been repatriated overseas?
In recent year’s China and its firms have been accused of promoting a new species of neocolonial control of post independent African states through opaque project contracts that benefit, the local political elite and foreigners much more than the masses of the African countries.
One of the most objective criticism against the Chinese is that besides bribing local elites to secure multibillion contracts, they ensconce themselves with autocratic and unaccountable regimes to acquire de facto sovereign immunity from all forms of legitimate judicial and legislative oversight.
Because they enjoy Executive privilege these foreign firms import menial and technical labour, promote and enforce unfair employment practices plus other preemptive rights on procurement of services and material to implement the projects. The by-product of this unchecked conduct is that foreigners reap billions, destroy the environment, lock Kenyans on low paying and low level menial jobs with impunity.
Foreign firms also enjoy unchallenged latitude when it comes to importing material for local projects. The most noxious result of these unfair practices is that these mega projects have neither resulted in skills transfer to Kenyans nor spurred industrial innovation and growth in their wake.
The Local Content Bill 2025 is a legitimate response to these concerns but it has been frustrated by special foreign and domestic interests and the filibustering of the House Business Committee that determines the order of business in the National Assembly.
Drafted by Laikipia County MP Jane Kagiri early 2025, the Local Content Bill was procedurally, introduced in the National Assembly in October 2025 but has stalled before the Trade Committee for more than a year despite its positive attempts to address the excesses of foreign importers and plight of Kenyan professionals.
The Bill seeks to compel foreign firms operating in Kenya to acquire or source 60 per cent of their material from local manufacturers and companies. It also proposes that foreign companies in Kenya be compelled to provide technical and capacity building to local firms, and that all foreign firms investing in agriculture should obtain their raw agricultural material locally.
Under the proposed law, foreign firms are required by law to employ Kenyan professionals like engineers, surveyors etc at all levels. And it is proposed that 80 per cent of employees at foreign firms should be Kenyans and that these firms must comply with Kenya’s labour practices and renumeration standards.
Besides compelling foreign firms to obtain material locally, the bill proposes that Kenyans must be considered by these foreigners in the provision of financial, insurance, logistical, warehousing, security and related services.
The promoter of the Bill indicates it seeks to promote local manufacturing, skills transfer, employment and reduce the colossal repatriation of billions from Kenya with a multiplier effect on the local economy. The bill proposes still penalties for non-compliance or violation of the proposed law.
This is a letter to the Speaker of the National Assembly and leaders of the Majority and Minority of the National Assembly to unlock this law. Let the legislature debate and amend, strengthen and adopt it for the benefits to accrue. Kenyan professionals should not perform menial jobs at these mega projects.
The special local forces stalling this Bill benefit from the status quo either as recipients of bribes, subcontractors and suppliers of some sort. These selfish interests should be thwarted.
