The Court of Appeal has ordered the government to release all documents linked to the Nairobi-Mombasa  Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), ruling that withholding the information from taxpayers who funded the USD 4.5 billion, approximately Ksh583 billion, railway is unconstitutional.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

The ruling, delivered on May 15, 2026, by a three-judge bench dismissed a 2022 civil appeal filed by the Attorney General Dorcas Oduor against two civil rights advocates.

“The Court underscored that access to State-held information is a constitutional and democratic entitlement, subject only to narrowly construed and constitutionally justifiable limitations, and that the burden of proving any exemption rests squarely upon the State or public authority withholding the information,” stated the ruling in part.

The advocates had petitioned the High Court in 2021 under Constitutional Petition No. E032 of 2021, demanding full disclosure of Kenya's railway financing, procurement contracts, and bilateral arrangements with the Chinese government.

📌 What You Need to Know

Their argument was that the SGR cost over Ksh583 billion, financed largely through public funds and loans guaranteed by Kenyan taxpayers, yet critical project documents, including contracts, feasibility studies, and environmental assessments, were kept completely out of public reach.

The petitioners in the case first formally requested the documents in December 2019 and followed up again in May 2021, but Kenya Railways Corporation and the Office of the Attorney General both turned them away, citing “official secrecy”.

According to the Court of Appeal, both institutions relied on confidentiality clauses in the contracts, national security concerns, foreign relations sensitivities, and exemptions under the Official Secrets Act and Section 6 of the Access to Information Act, 2016, to justify keeping the documents sealed.

“Following formal requests made in December 2019 and May 2021, Kenya Railways Corporation and the Office of the Attorney General declined disclosure, citing confidentiality clauses, national security concerns, foreign relations considerations, and exemptions under Sections 3(6) and (7) of the Official Secrets Act as well as Section 6 of the Access to Information Act, 2016,” stated the ruling in part.

Before the Court of Appeal, the AG Oduor pushed the same line, insisting that disclosure would damage Kenya's national security, poison diplomatic ties with China, harm commercial third parties, and expose the government to serious legal and financial repercussions.

The respondents, backed by Katiba Institute as the third respondent, countered that mere invocation of exemptions without concrete evidence of actual harm was not good enough to deny citizens access to information about a project of such massive national importance.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke