Prominent city lawyer Paul Muite has criticised Kenya’s government-to-government (G-to-G) petroleum procurement framework, alleging that intermediaries have benefited from the arrangement at the expense of Kenyan consumers.
Muite’s remarks followed comments by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who revealed that a Kenyan senator alerted him that Uganda was procuring petroleum products through middlemen in Kenya.
Museveni said the revelation prompted him to question Ugandan officials and seek alternative ways of sourcing fuel directly from bulk suppliers.
“The Republic of Uganda was buying petroleum products through middlemen in Kenya. Can you imagine that? And the person who woke me up first was a senator from Kenya,” Museveni said on Thursday, September 17, 2026, during the groundbreaking ceremony for a 320-million-litre petroleum storage terminal in Mpigi District, Uganda.
Muite, reacting to Museveni’s remarks, said the revelation raised questions about the description of Kenya’s petroleum arrangement as government-to-government.
“President M-7 is 100 per cent correct. In the G-G Oil deal, UAE and Saudi Arabia, G stands for Government. For Kenya, G stands for brokers. Lies calling it G-G. It is not,” Muite said.
He alleged that large sums of money were being lost through intermediaries and linked the alleged costs to the wider cost of living, citing transport, agriculture and manufacturing among the affected sectors.
“The staggering amounts of money being stolen through these brokers are a major cause of the high cost of living: transport, farming, manufacturing, name it. Theft in plain sight,” he said.
Muite further called for the recovery of what he described as stolen funds to be prioritised by the government that takes office after the 2027 General Election.
Museveni's remarks have drawn attention to the procurement arrangements Uganda previously used to source petroleum products through Kenya.
According to figures presented during the Mpigi ceremony, Uganda had been paying a premium of $118 per metric tonne for diesel under the previous arrangement, compared with $83 under its current arrangement involving Vitol and the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC).
For petrol, the premium fell from $97.50 to $61.50 per metric tonne, while the premium for aviation fuel declined from $114.25 to $79.25, according to figures cited by Museveni and Uganda's Permanent Secretary for Energy Irene Batebe.
Museveni said the differences in costs convinced him that the previous arrangement had to be terminated.
“So that's when I had to come in and say, this must end. And it ended,” he said.
Uganda subsequently moved to give UNOC a greater role in directly importing petroleum products.
In 2024, Uganda sought to end its reliance on Kenyan oil marketing companies and allow UNOC to directly import fuel through Kenya. The move initially resulted in a dispute over licensing and access to Kenya's petroleum infrastructure.
Kenya and Uganda later reached an agreement allowing UNOC to import petroleum products through Kenya and use the country's infrastructure, including the Port of Mombasa and the Kenya Pipeline network.
Museveni did not identify the Kenyan senator whom he said brought the procurement issue to his attention.
Kenya's G-to-G petroleum framework, introduced in 2023, was designed to secure petroleum supplies through government-owned suppliers in Gulf countries.
Muite's comments now add to scrutiny of the role of intermediaries in petroleum procurement and the effect of fuel importation costs on consumers and businesses.
