- High Court ruled EACC cannot investigate KTDA’s private tea factory loan deals.
- Judge found the loans involved no public funds, public officers or bribery.
- Court said such cases fall under the DCI, not EACC.
A High Court judge has stopped EACC from digging into loan arrangements at two tea factories run by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), saying the commission overstepped the powers given to it by law.
Justice William Musyoka delivered the decision after finding that KTDA operates as a private entity and that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) can only investigate matters touching on public officers, public money, public resources or bribery.
Since none of these applied to the loan transactions at the centre of the case, the judge concluded the commission had no business pursuing them.
At issue were commodity loans given to Michimikuru Tea Factory in Meru and Litein Tea Factory in Kericho. The EACC had written to KTDA Management Services, KTDA Holdings and acting Chief Executive on March 31, 2026, demanding records on the loans and threatening criminal penalties for non compliance.
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KTDA pushed back, taking the matter to court and insisting the loans were purely commercial arrangements funded privately, with no public money involved. The agency, which represents more than 600,000 smallholder tea farmers spread across 16 counties, also pointed out that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) was already looking into the same loans and urged the court to let the police finish that work undisturbed.
Justice Musyoka sided with KTDA, cancelling the EACC’s demand notice and stopping the commission from continuing its probe as it stood. He explained that when corruption allegations do not involve bribery, responsibility for investigating them sits with the police, not the EACC.
Having examined the paperwork filed by each side, he found every reference pointed to economic crimes and irregularities in how the loans were managed, with not a single mention of bribery anywhere in the record.
Because of that gap, he ruled that any EACC investigation into conduct unconnected to bribery would exceed the powers Parliament gave the commission.
For its part, the EACC had argued that its authority was not confined to public bodies and that the matter still amounted to economic crime deserving scrutiny. Investigator Ishmael Nyamache told the court the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act gave the commission reach beyond the public sector alone.
With this judgment, the tea agency has won the legal battle, and the case has drawn a clearer line: without a bribery element, allegations against private businesses fall to the DCI to investigate, not the EACC.
By Benedict Aoya
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