Kenyan billionaire Mohamed Jaffer just locked up Mombasa's grain monopoly for another 20 years

Mohamed Jaffer has done it again. Kenya's "port man" has secured a fresh 20-year lease renewal for his Bulkstream Limited at the Port of Mombasa, extending his grip on the country's only bulk grain discharge terminals seven years before the existing contract was due to expire, according to people familiar with the matter.

President William Ruto's government approved the renewal for Bulkstream, formerly known as Grain Bulk Handler Group before a 2024 rebranding, allowing the MJ Group subsidiary to continue operating berths three and four at Mombasa for another two decades. The contract has not yet been gazetted by the Ministry of Roads and Transport. Abass Jaffer, a director at Bulkstream and son of the founder, did not respond to questions sent by The Africa Report in late May.

The renewal caps a five-year battle by rivals to crack open a market that Jaffer has effectively owned since 2000, when GBHL first signed a 33-year concession agreement with the Kenya Ports Authority. Under the original contract, the company held exclusive rights for the first eight years, during which the government agreed not to license any competitors. That exclusivity window closed in 2008. No new player has come in since.

Bulkstream handles approximately 98 percent of all bulk grain imports into Kenya, covering rice, wheat and maize destined not just for domestic consumption but for the landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The two remaining percentage points are handled by conventional operators using ship grabs and direct truck loading, typically deployed only when the main terminals are congested.

The pricing structure entrenches Jaffer's position as effectively as any legal barrier could. Bulkstream pays the Kenya Ports Authority a service fee of $3.85 per metric tonne. Conventional operators are charged $10.40 per metric tonne. That $6.55 gap per tonne guarantees workflow to Bulkstream regardless of competitive effort. On top of KPA fees, Bulkstream charges millers $16 per tonne. The company processes an average of 2.2 million tonnes of bulk grains annually.

Kenya's parliament flagged the problem in a 2020 committee report, describing the fee differential between Jaffer's facility and conventional handlers as "a technical barrier to trade and competition." The committee recommended transparent appointment of new bulk grain operators and expansion of port facilities to accommodate additional berths. KPA set a 2022 deadline to license a second grain handler. No approval has been granted.

The most serious challenge to Jaffer's dominance came from a cluster of companies associated with the family of Hassan Joho, the mining cabinet secretary, after Portside Freight Terminals won a 5.9 billion Kenyan shilling ($45.4 million) contract in 2022. The Supreme Court quashed that procurement, ruling that KPA had failed to meet constitutional thresholds of fairness, transparency and competitiveness. It was a significant legal victory for Jaffer and a direct blow to Joho's port ambitions.

KPA Managing Director Captain William Ruto, ministry of transport officials and GBHL representatives all declined to comment on the early renewal when contacted. A senior manager at KPA told The Africa Report plainly: "KPA cannot run the grain facility, and the two berths are likely to remain under private entities for a longer period."

The lease renewal coincides with a quieter but equally significant restructuring of the Jaffer empire. Faced with mounting scrutiny inside Kenya and rising competition across the region, MJ Group has been shifting toward consortium-style ownership structures, bringing in politically connected partners, institutional capital and foreign investors into businesses that were previously held tightly within the family.

In 2024, MJ Group indirectly sold a controlling stake in Bulkstream through its Mauritius-based holding company Incorp Limited to the South Africa-headquartered African Infrastructure Investment Manager. AIIM is now preparing to sell approximately half of its stake in African Ports and Corridors Holdings, its Mauritius-based platform focused on port infrastructure and commodity logistics in Zambia and Tanzania, to Globe In Limited, another Mauritius-registered entity linked to the Jaffer network and active in cargo handling across Kenya and Uganda. Analysts who track the group say the moves are designed primarily to smooth succession within the empire, reduce political exposure with future administrations and raise fresh capital as East African port competition intensifies.

The empire is not without its problems. In April 2026, One Petroleum Limited, in which Mohamed Jaffer and his sons hold a majority stake, was among four companies that imported substandard fuel into Kenya outside the existing government supply arrangement. The consignment, valued at 8 billion Kenyan shillings, was found to contain elevated levels of sulphur, benzene and manganese. One Petroleum denied wrongdoing, saying it had responded to an urgent supply request from the Ministry of Energy during a period of disruption and had acted with written government approval. The scandal led to the arrest and police questioning of several senior energy officials. The government subsequently waived maximum sulphur limits for six months to keep fuel flowing through the market.

What has not changed, and what the 20-year lease confirms, is that under President Moi, President Kibaki, President Kenyatta and now President Ruto, the answer to the question of whether Jaffer wins at the Port of Mombasa has always been yes.