Kenya has formally moved to tighten control over trade in goods and services that can be used to produce biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, proposing punitive measures against offenders, including fines of up to Sh50 million and jail terms of up to 10 years.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah on April 7, 2026 tabled the Strategic Goods Control Bill, 2026 in the House, marking a key step towards regulation.
The Bill, which has been in the making for more than a decade, seeks to establish a control committee to license traders in such goods and oversee the list of items classified under the new law. The framework will also guide the export, import, storage and transshipment of these goods and services.
Strategic goods refer to military items and other dual-use technologies that could be used or diverted to produce weapons of mass destruction. The Interior Cabinet Secretary will provide a national control list specifying the items covered under the law.
The United Nations has developed a list of strategic goods, including items such as ammunition, tanks, military aircraft, imaging devices, lasers and autonomous flying vehicles.
Kenya has sought to establish a law controlling the trade and handling of such goods since 2015, when the Cabinet issued a memo authorising legislation in response to a wave of terror attacks during that period.
Control regime
“The principal object of the Bill is to provide for the control of trade in strategic goods and related services, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery,” reads the memorandum on the Bill.
“The Bill establishes the Strategic Goods Control Committee…whose functions include oversight of trade in strategic goods and related services, formulation and review of the National Control List, issuance, suspension and revocation of licences or certificates issued under the Act, and establishment and operation of end-use controls and compliance checks.”
The control committee will be chaired by the Internal Security Principal Secretary and will include principal secretaries from the ministries of defence, finance, health, ICT and trade.
Other members include the Solicitor General, the Chief of Defence Forces, the Director General of the National Intelligence Service, the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner General of the Kenya Revenue Authority.
Except for the Interior PS, all other members may nominate representatives to sit on the committee on their behalf. The Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry will each nominate one member.
Tough penalties
Persons who fail to meet licence conditions, trade illegally in strategic goods or facilitate such trade will face fines of between Sh3 million and Sh50 million or prison terms of up to 10 years.
The Interior Ministry has previously indicated that, beyond physical items, Kenya is also monitoring software that could aid the development of weapons of mass destruction or enable technological warfare.
