# Why Kenya is poor: commodities, deindustrialization, and debt Why a growing economy stays poor with costly imports and high taxes: a colonial commodity-export structure, the 1980s-90s deindustrialization under structural adjustment, the stacked tax wall on every import, and a debt-and-tax trap that fed the 2024 protests. *This story part of: The IMF, the World Bank, and the developing world* *This story parallel: Colonization: the making of the modern world* *This story part of: Dependency: why independence did not bring economic freedom* *This story parallel: Why Kenya is corrupt: the inherited machine and the politics of the belly* *This story parallel: Kenya's web of agreements: the treaties that bind a state* *The hidden leash: the fine print that keeps economies dependent part of this story* *The care drain: recruiting the world's health workers parallel this story* *The extraction of western Kenya: gold, tea, and labour parallel this story* *Uhuru Kenyatta: dynasty, Jubilee, debt, and the handshake state continues this story* ## 1901 — The Uganda Railway wires Kenya into the export economy Britain completed the Uganda Railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, opening the interior to trade and settlement. The line was built to move raw goods to the coast for export and to carry imported manufactures inland. It set the basic shape of the colonial economy: a channel for commodities out and finished goods in. *Source: Uganda Railway (Cost Of Construction)* ## 1915 — The White Highlands and the settler plantation base The Crown Lands Ordinance of 1915 secured the fertile highlands for European settlers and locked Africans out of the best farmland. Large estates grew coffee, tea, sisal, and pyrethrum for export using cheap African labour. This plantation base made Kenya a producer of raw cash crops for British and world markets. *Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya* *Source: Tea in Kenya: a History of Colonialism, Labour and Power* *Source: Tea-volution* *Source: Kenyan Land Dispossession* ## c. 1920 — Coffee and tea become the export backbone Through the 1920s and 1930s coffee and tea grew into Kenya's leading exports, sold mainly to Britain. Prices were set on distant markets, so the colony's income rose and fell with commodity cycles it did not control. The economy earned foreign currency from raw crops and spent it on imported manufactured goods. *Source: History of Kenyan Tea* ## December 1963 — Independence keeps the commodity export model Kenya became independent in December 1963 but kept the economic structure built under colonial rule. It remained an exporter of tea, coffee, and other raw crops and an importer of finished goods. Ownership shifted over time to Kenyans, yet the underlying role of raw supplier and manufactures buyer stayed in place. ## 1965 — Sessional Paper No. 10 and import-substitution industry Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965, African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya, set out a mixed economy with an active state. Through the 1960s and 1970s Kenya pursued import-substitution industrialization, using tariffs and protection to build local factories for goods once imported. Textiles, food processing, and assembly plants grew behind these barriers. ## 1974 — Kenya's auto sector assembles kits rather than manufactures Plants such as Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers in Thika and Associated Vehicle Assemblers in Mombasa put together vehicles from imported completely-knocked-down kits. This is assembly, not full manufacturing: the engines, bodies, and major parts are made abroad and shipped in. Kenya has no domestic mass-production of cars, so most vehicles on its roads are either imported whole or assembled from foreign kits. ## 1975 — Colin Leys reads Kenya through dependency theory The scholar Colin Leys published Underdevelopment in Kenya, arguing that the colonial economic structure persisted after independence and kept the country dependent on foreign capital and commodity exports. In this dependency reading, Kenya's place as a raw exporter and manufactures importer was not an accident of policy but a legacy built into the economy. The interpretation is attributed to Leys and later dependency scholars, and other economists dispute it. ## 1980 — The World Bank's first Structural Adjustment Loan to Kenya Kenya was among the first countries to take a World Bank Structural Adjustment Loan, signed in 1980. In exchange for finance it agreed to open trade, cut protection, and reduce the state's role in the economy. The programme began a long era of conditions attached to lending by the Bank and the IMF. ## c. 1993 — Trade liberalization and shilling devaluation under SAPs Under IMF and World Bank programmes in the late 1980s and early 1990s Kenya removed most import tariffs and quotas, cut subsidies, and let the shilling devalue sharply. These were the documented terms of the adjustment programmes. Supporters of the deindustrialization reading argue the loss of tariff protection exposed local factories to cheap imports and drove them under; critics counter that mismanagement and corruption in state-linked firms did the damage, and both readings are attributed to those who make them. ## c. 1994 — Second-hand clothes undercut the textile mills As trade opened, cheap imported second-hand clothes, known as mitumba, flooded the market in the 1990s. Local textile firms such as Rivatex and Kicomi could not compete and shut down or scaled back. The collapse is cited by critics of adjustment as evidence of its cost, while others attribute it to weak management and outdated plants. ## c. 1995 — The cut-flower boom around Lake Naivasha From the 1990s Kenya became one of the world's largest exporters of cut flowers, most grown around Lake Naivasha and flown to European markets. Horticulture joined tea and coffee as a top foreign-exchange earner. It extended, rather than changed, the pattern of exporting fresh raw produce and importing finished goods. *Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya* *Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963* *Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya* *Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s* *Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence* *Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance* ## January 2005 — The East African Community sets a 25 percent car tariff The East African Community customs union took effect in 2005 with a Common External Tariff on goods entering the bloc. Finished passenger vehicles fall in the top band, carrying an import duty of 25 percent of customs value. This is the first of several charges stacked on an imported car. ## c. 2008 — The eight-year age limit on used car imports Kenya bars the import of used vehicles more than eight years old, enforced through the Kenya Bureau of Standards code KS 1515. A car imported in a given year must be from within the previous eight model years. The rule keeps out the cheapest older vehicles and pushes buyers toward newer, more heavily taxed imports. ## c. 2010 — Chinese manufactured imports surge into Kenya Through the 2000s and 2010s low-priced Chinese manufactured goods, from household items to building materials, took a large share of the Kenyan market. China became one of Kenya's biggest sources of imports, widening the trade deficit. Local producers of similar goods struggled to match the prices. ## 2013 — VAT set at 16 percent under the VAT Act The Value Added Tax Act of 2013 set Kenya's standard VAT rate at 16 percent. On an imported vehicle, VAT is charged on the customs value plus import duty and excise, so it applies on top of the earlier taxes. This compounding lifts the final figure well above the headline rate. ## May 2014 — China finances the Standard Gauge Railway Financing for the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway was finalised in May 2014, with China's Exim Bank lending about 90 percent of the roughly 3.6 billion US dollar cost. The loans were a mix of concessional and commercial credit, secured against future revenues. The project became the largest single item in Kenya's growing debt to China. ## June 2014 — Kenya issues its first Eurobond In June 2014 Kenya sold its debut Eurobond, raising 2 billion US dollars on international markets in five-year and ten-year tranches. It was then the largest sovereign debut by an African country and was meant to fund infrastructure and the budget. The bond marked Kenya's turn toward large-scale commercial borrowing in foreign currency. ## 2015 — Graduated excise duty by engine size The Excise Duty Act of 2015 and later amendments set excise on imported vehicles in bands tied to engine capacity. Rates run from about 20 percent for smaller engines up to 35 percent or more for larger ones. Excise is charged on the customs value plus import duty, adding another layer to the total. ## 2016 — The Import Declaration Fee and Railway Development Levy The Miscellaneous Fees and Levies Act of 2016 consolidated two further charges on imports: an Import Declaration Fee of 3.5 percent and a Railway Development Levy of 2 percent of customs value. The railway levy was introduced to help fund the Standard Gauge Railway. Together with duty, excise, and VAT, these charges can add roughly 50 to 100 percent or more to the price of an imported car. ## c. 2019 — KRA values cars against the CRSP price list The Kenya Revenue Authority values imported vehicles using its Current Retail Selling Price list, a schedule of benchmark prices by make and model. Taxes are calculated from this figure after age-based depreciation, not from what the buyer actually paid. Because the list sets the taxable value, updates to it directly change how much importers owe, and revisions have drawn repeated complaints. ## April 2021 — The IMF approves a $2.34 billion programme for Kenya In April 2021 the IMF approved a 38-month programme for Kenya worth about 2.34 billion US dollars under the Extended Fund Facility and Extended Credit Facility. Its stated conditions centred on fiscal consolidation, mainly raising tax revenue and controlling spending to reduce debt. Supporters of the external reading say this conditionality pushed the tax rises that followed, while others attribute the pressure to domestic overspending and waste; both readings are attributed to those who argue them. ## June 2022 — Parliament raises the debt ceiling to 10 trillion shillings In 2022 Parliament raised Kenya's public debt ceiling to 10 trillion shillings as borrowing kept climbing, with debt near 68 percent of GDP. Debt servicing came to consume a large share of government revenue, roughly a third and rising toward half by 2024. Whether this burden stems mainly from external loans and IMF-linked terms or from domestic corruption and waste is read both ways, and each reading is attributed to its proponents. ## 26 June 2023 — The Finance Act 2023 raises fuel VAT and adds a housing levy President Ruto signed the Finance Act 2023 into law on 26 June 2023. It doubled VAT on fuel from 8 to 16 percent and introduced a mandatory housing levy of 1.5 percent of gross pay from both employer and employee. The measures were framed as ways to raise revenue and cut the deficit, and parts were later challenged in court. ## 25 June 2024 — The Finance Bill 2024 protests and its withdrawal The Finance Bill 2024 sought to raise about 346 billion shillings in new taxes to service debt and fund the budget. On 25 June 2024 protesters stormed Parliament in Nairobi and police killed at least 22 people. The next day President Ruto announced he would not sign the bill and it was withdrawn. Protesters blamed high taxes on both heavy debt and government waste, and the two explanations are attributed to those who hold them.