Title: Kenya’s Mining Sector Gripped by Licence Chaos as Joho Ministry Faces Heat
Persistent delays in licence approvals, escalating legal battles and unresolved community conflicts are casting a shadow over Kenya’s extractives sector, raising uncomfortable questions about governance at the Ministry of Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs under Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho.
Investors and artisanal miners alike say the licensing process has become unpredictable, with applications stalling for months without explanation and some approved permits subsequently challenged by rival claimants in court. Industry insiders describe a backlog at the Mining Cadastre and National Mines and Geology Survey that has frustrated both small-scale operators and major exploration companies seeking to advance projects.
Kenya holds significant deposits of titanium, soda ash, coal, rare earth minerals and gemstones, and the sector has long been identified in successive government plans as an underexploited driver of economic diversification. Yet actual mining revenue has remained a fraction of its potential, a gap that analysts attribute partly to governance weaknesses.
Community tensions have added a further layer of complexity. In several counties including Kwale, Taita Taveta and Turkana, local residents have challenged mining operations on grounds of inadequate benefit-sharing, environmental concerns and displacement — issues that the existing legal framework under the Mining Act 2016 was meant to address through community development agreements but which remain contested in practice.
Allegations of corruption in the licensing process have surfaced in parliamentary committee hearings, though the ministry has denied systematic wrongdoing. CS Joho, who built his political profile as a combative Mombasa governor, now faces pressure from both the industry lobby and civil society to demonstrate that his ministry can deliver administrative efficiency alongside equitable resource governance.
The government has signalled ambitions to grow mining’s contribution to GDP significantly by 2030, a target that will require urgent reform of the licensing infrastructure.
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