High Court keeps duty-free rice case alive after strike-out bid fails
Key points
- High Court Justice Edward Muriithi refused to strike out a petition challenging duty-free rice imports.
- Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango’s case pits food-security policy against farmers’ legitimate expectation of marketable local rice.
- Treasury CS John Mbadi gazetted duty-free milled white rice (reports cite 500,000 metric tons window; separate filings reference smaller consignments).
- Multiple parallel suits have been filed; government argued administrative nature and abuse of process — court kept the constitutional track open.
Importers who hoped the High Court would quietly bury the rice fight left empty-handed. Justice Edward Muriithi declined to strike out the petition by Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango challenging the government’s duty-free rice window, The Standard reported.
The judge said the dispute is weighty: it tests whether repeated Treasury gazette notices under Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi validly balance national food security against farmers’ property and livelihood expectations when cheap imports flood the market. He linked the clash to Article 165(4) questions on constitutional authority and whether duty-free clearance undercuts local growers’ returns.
Government lawyers had urged the court to stay out, calling the matter administrative and citing a swarm of related filings as abuse of process. Farmers and politicians counter that Kenya already grows enough for segments of the market and that open windows create a glut. Reporting around the file notes production near 244,000 metric tons against much higher consumption — a gap that has historically left room for imports worth tens of billions of shillings — while Mbadi’s camp points to cost-of-living pressure and a Cabinet framework using Kenya National Trading Corporation as a price stabiliser for staples.
Six files, one crop, zero calm
Rice has become a multi-court circus. Related orders have frozen or delayed consignments; parties have dropped and re-joined cases; proxy-petitioner drama has already played out before other benches. Mbadi has argued most imported grade-one basmati does not directly replace local pishori and that arid counties face food-security risk — farmers hear only price collapse.
Business desk: Business. Verified strike-out refusal, Murango petition and constitutional framing from The Standard; exact remaining tonnage on the water changes with each shipping update.
Parliament should force a single public dashboard of duty-free rice permits, arrivals and warehouse stock. Without it, every gazette is a rumour engine.
Until judgment, millers, traders and Mwea growers will plan on legal fog, not a clear national rice policy.
Based on The Standard court reporting. Final import volumes and orders depend on subsequent rulings and gazettes.
