By Eshioromeh Sebastian
President William Ruto has ordered a sweeping crackdown on foreign nationals running small shops and hawking businesses across Kenya, with all such operations to be shut down from Monday, September 7.
The directive, delivered Wednesday during a State House meeting with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) traders, marks the strongest move yet in Ruto’s campaign to reserve the country’s informal retail space for Kenyan citizens.
“It cannot be that a person comes from China or elsewhere to be a hawker or open a small shop,” Ruto declared, according to local news outlet Kenyans.co.ke. “From next week, all traders doing those small businesses should close them.”
The order affects thousands of foreign-owned kiosks, street stalls, and mobile vending operations, a sector that has long been a lifeline for low-income Kenyans but has seen growing foreign participation in recent years.
Beyond the immediate shutdown, Ruto is pushing for permanent legislative backing. He directed Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah and Trade CS Lee Kinyanjui to expedite the Local Content Bill, 2025, which proposes sweeping restrictions on foreign economic participation.
Under the proposed legislation, foreign companies operating in Kenya would be required to maintain at least 80 per cent Kenyan staff across all levels, including senior management and chief executive positions.
The bill also mandates that foreign firms source at least 60 per cent of their goods and services from local suppliers. For manufacturing activities linked to agriculture, the requirement jumps to 100 per cent local sourcing of produce.
These procurement rules would extend to financial services, insurance, construction, transport, warehousing, logistics, and security — potentially reshaping the operating landscape for foreign investors across multiple sectors.
The move follows Nairobi County’s January 2025 ban on hawking along major CBD walkways, which confined street traders to designated backstreets.
Analysts see the new presidential directive as a national expansion of that protectionist stance.
Enforcement mechanisms remain unclear. Questions linger over whether there will be a grace period for existing foreign-owned shops, how authorities will distinguish between resident foreigners and visitors, and whether the directive will face legal challenges from business groups or diplomatic missions.
Kenya’s MSME sector accounts for over 80 per cent of employment and contributes significantly to GDP. Any disruption to this ecosystem carries economic and social risks, a reality Ruto’s administration will have to navigate carefully.
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