Former AG Justin Muturi warns over planned dissolution of Kenya Refineries Ltd

Former Attorney General Justin Muturi./HANDOUT

Former Attorney General Justin Muturi has warned over the planned dissolution of the country’s only strategic oil refining and storage facility, Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited (KPRL).

Muturi says KPRL, based in Mombasa, has for decades stood as a cornerstone of Kenya’s energy sovereignty.

It holds over 400 acres of prime land, including vast tracts in Nyali and Kilifi that directly face the Indian Ocean, land whose strategic and economic value cannot be overstated.

“Now, under the guise of “dissolution,” the government is fast-tracking a process that would see KPRL’s assets absorbed by the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC), which itself is being prepared for privatization,” he said in a statement.

The ex-AG warned, “The motive is clear: to strip Kenya of one of its last remaining strategic assets, repackage it as a commercial enterprise, and eventually place it in private, possibly foreign hands. This is not reform. This is the state cannibalizing itself for short-term political and financial gain.”

He argues that Kenya has seen the movie before, from Telkom Kenya to Kenya Airways, privatiation has often translated into national dispossession as state assets are sold at undervalued prices, debt is socialized, and profits privatised, while the people get nothing but job losses, higher costs, and permanent dependency on foreign capital.

“This push to dissolve KPRL is not merely economic mismanagement. It is generational theft. Once strategic assets like KPRL’s land and infrastructure are gone, no future government will be able to recover them. Kenya will lose leverage over its own energy infrastructure, becoming a mere tenant in its own house.”

Muturi who also served as National Assembly Speaker and Public Service CS, said the KPRL facility was designed not just to refine crude oil but to guarantee Kenya’s energy security.

“Its storage infrastructure, deep-water berths, and vast land holdings make it an irreplaceable national reserve. Even after refining operations were suspended in 2013, KPRL remained a critical logistical and strategic site, storing petroleum products and serving as a potential base for future refinery revival.”

He has faulted the government claims that KPRL is non-performing and obsolete, warning that those are excuses and deliberately cultivated neglect to justify plunder, adding that successive administrations have failed to modernize KPRL precisely because vested interests wanted it weakened.

“The facility could easily be rehabilitated or retooled for new energy technologies such as biofuel processing or strategic crude reserves. Instead, Ruto’s government wants to bury it, sell off its assets, and gift its land to private entities under the pretext of efficiency,” the former AG who is now Democratic Party (DP) leader said.

He added; “Let us be blunt: the 400 acres of ocean-facing land in Nyali and Kilifi are the real prize. That land, in one of the most valuable coastal zones in East Africa, could fetch billions on the market. Once transferred to KPC, and once KPC is privatized, it will slip irretrievably out of public ownership.”

Muturi castigated parliament for failing over its oversight functions while the media and civil society have remained largely silent.

“The tragedy is that Parliament, civil society, and the media have remained largely silent, perhaps numbed by the technical jargon surrounding “corporate restructuring.” But this is not a technical matter; it is a political one. The Public Finance Management Act, the Privatization Act, and the Energy Act all require transparency, public participation, and strategic assessment before any asset transfer. None of that has happened.”