Court Orders State to Disclose Records on Kenya Pipeline Sale

The High Court has ordered the government to produce key records relating to the sale of the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) within 21 days, in a case brought by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah and two other petitioners.

Justice Patricia Nyaundi directed the National Executive, the Attorney-General, the Privatisation Commission and the Privatisation Authority to produce valuation reports, Cabinet memoranda, procurement records, International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreements and other transaction documents tied to the sale.

The petition seeks access to these records as part of a constitutional challenge to the KPC transaction, filed by Omtatah alongside petitioners Bernard Muchiri Muchere and Naomi Nyakerario Misati in January.

The court issued the disclosure order after declining an application by the Attorney-General to have the petition dismissed outright, allowing the underlying constitutional questions to proceed to a full hearing.

Justice Nyaundi also declined to refer the matter to a multi-judge bench, meaning the case will continue to be heard before a single judge rather than the three-judge panel the petitioners had earlier sought.

The order comes months after the government completed the sale in question. The state sold a 65 percent stake in KPC through an initial public offering that closed oversubscribed, raising Sh106.3 billion (approximately $821.6 million), with the shares listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange on March 10.

The government retained a 35 percent stake in the company following the listing, and separately revoked KPC's status as a national government entity as part of the broader transaction.

The petitioners have argued throughout the case that the privatisation was driven externally by the IMF under Kenya's Extended Fund Facility and Extended Credit Facility loan programmes, rather than through an independent sovereign policy decision, and that the process lacked adequate public participation.

Omtatah has previously pointed to KPC's 2024 financial results, which showed a profit of Sh6.87 billion and dividends of Sh7 billion, arguing that more than Sh97 billion in retained earnings and depreciation funds tied to the company remained unaccounted for ahead of the sale.

Katiba Institute and the Law Society of Kenya are listed as interested parties in the case, which has moved through several preliminary rounds, including an earlier decision by a different judge declining to halt the sale process before it concluded.

With the disclosure order now in place, the case moves toward examining the substance of how the KPC sale was structured and approved, even though the transaction itself has already closed.