Kenyan President William Ruto has ordered foreign nationals operating hawking stalls and small shops to shut down by Monday, September 7, 2026. “It cannot be that a person comes from China or elsewhere to be a hawker or open a small shop,” Ruto said, according to Kenyans.co.ke.
The order is tied to the stalled Local Content Bill, 2025, which would reserve small-scale trade for Kenyan citizens and require foreign firms to employ an 80 percent Kenyan workforce, including senior management. The bill also mandates 60 percent local sourcing across financial services, insurance, construction, transport, warehousing, logistics and security, with 100 percent local sourcing required in agriculture-related manufacturing.
Ruto also directed Tata Chemicals to wind down soda-ash mining operations at Lake Magadi, which the company has run since 2005, according to Africa Intelligence Brief. “What do you say? Are we slaves?” Ruto asked, questioning the terms of the long-running arrangement.
The president framed the crackdown as protection for Kenyan entrepreneurs, saying “we have not improved investor confidence for hawkers to come to Kenya.” Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah and Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui have been directed to accelerate the bill’s passage through parliament.
The move echoes similar tension over informal trade elsewhere on the continent, where Harare’s local government minister has set a September 9 deadline for street vendors to vacate Zimbabwe’s capital, a standoff affecting more than 30,000 traders in the city’s central business district.
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