Kenya Still Solicits Bribes From American Investors

The United States has yet again flagged rampant bribe requests and extortion of American investors by Kenyan government officials to secure tenders.
Now, the United States Trade Representative’s office, in its 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE), says corruption persists and often influences the outcome of Kenya’s public tenders.

And despite Kenya’s procurement digitisation push to boost transparency, America says systems such as the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) remain ineffective.

Similar to last year, the report further notes that U.S. companies have raised concerns about the length of time required for Kenyan customs to release shipments.

It flags what it calls a “complex and inefficient process” that involves “many steps with uncoordinated offices”, inconsistent application of classification and valuation decisions, as well as “unnecessary transit inspections.”

At the same time, the U.S. has noted the widespread availability of counterfeit and pirated goods in the Kenyan market.

“Kenya signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty in 1996 but has yet to ratify it,” Greer’s office says.

This is an international treaty on copyright law adopted by the member states of WIPO, a U.N. agency specialising in intellectual property, in 1996.

Still, Washington says Nairobi’s customs recordation system and Import Permit application requirements are still not enforced, despite adding additional costs and resources for Americans bringing products containing intellectual property into Kenya.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s report comes days after Kenya began rolling out the end-to-end Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) System to crack down on graft in national and county government contracting.