Investment inflows into public-private-partnership (PPP) projects in Kenya, have reached a cumulative total of Sh145 billion since 2013, new disclosures showed, signalling the growing influence of the financing option.
Treasury documents show that Kenya netted Sh17.7billion into PPP projects in the year ended June 2025 alone, an indication of the rapid growth of the model.
‘Since inception of the public-private partnership in 2013, approximately Sh145 billion private capital investments in PPPs has been mobilised, Sh17.7 billion of which was mobilised in the financial year 2024/25,’ the PPP Directorate of the National Treasury said.
Kenya adopted the PPP model in 2013 in a bid to deliver huge infrastructural projects without tapping Exchequer funds or incurring direct loans amid a ballooning debt burden.
The PPP model has delivered five projects: the 27.1-kilometre Nairobi Expressway, roads totalling 170.57 km in 11 counties and the 35-megawatt Sosian Menengai Geothermal Power Plant.
In a PPP-funded project, the investor recoups their investment by charging user fees over a defined period, for example, the Chinese firm that funded the construction of the Nairobi Expressway is charging toll fees to motorists using the road until 2047. Currently, there are 36 PPP-funded projects at various stages of approval in Kenya, as the country targets to raise an additional Sh65 billion worth of private investor capital via the model in the current 2025/26 financial year.
However, the Treasury says that the PPP model is still facing bottlenecks that have led to the cancellation of deals.
‘The programme continues to face challenges, including lengthy project preparation timelines and limited technical capacity at some of the contracting authorities,’ the PPP unit says.
In 2021, Kenya amended the Public-Private Partnerships Act of 2013 to streamline the process of onboarding private investors by reducing bureaucracies involved in finalising deals.
The Public-Private Partnerships (Amendment) Act, 2021 repealed the previous Act of 2013, allowing public entities in PPP deals to single-source work in an effort to accelerate projects.
Kenya had previously struggled to attract private investors to PPPs, prompting the legal changes that were signed into law by former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The subsidiary legislation on the PPP Act 2021, also introduced a raft of other sweeteners, including doubling the limit of fees payable to transaction advisors behind successful PPP projects.
In the changes, the Treasury set the success fee at one percent of the total cost of a PPP project-double the previous one.
A success fee is a conditional agreement whereby a consultant or advisor is paid a set rate if a PPP project’s outcome is positive. If the outcome is not positive, there is no obligation to pay the fee. It serves as motivation to the consultants or advisors to do their best and earn the maximum.