Court bars expansion at Kenyan billionaire Mohamed Jaffer's Mombasa oil terminal over mangrove damage

A Kenyan court has barred the oil and gas company owned by billionaire Mohamed Jaffer from carrying out new major construction at its Mombasa terminal, after a petitioner accused the firm of destroying a protected mangrove forest and causing oil spills into the surrounding ecosystem.

Justice Anne Akello of the Environment and Land Court in Mombasa issued the interim order against African Gas and Oil Company, known as AGOL, and the Kenya Forest Service, pending a full hearing of the case. The judge declined to shut down the company's operations entirely, citing the wider economic and public implications, and instead limited her order to preventing new works within the disputed forest area.

The case was brought by a petitioner, Onunga, who alleges that AGOL turned a parcel of coastal land into an oil and gas landing site and in doing so damaged the Kilindini mangrove ecosystem. According to the petition, the use of the site has subjected the mangroves to oil spillage that has harmed the growth and survival of plant and animal life in the area, and has obstructed the breeding of fish. None of the allegations has been tested, and AGOL has not yet responded in court.

The petitioner's central complaint concerns how AGOL obtained the land. He alleges the Kenya Forest Service granted the company a special-use licence over about 23.1 hectares of forest land within the Kilindini Bay mangrove area in 2012, for a period of 30 years, and that AGOL later extended its footprint by a further 17.3 hectares through subsequent addenda. He contends the land is public land forming part of a coastal mangrove swamp forest gazetted under a 1932 proclamation, and that no lawful degazettement or allocation has been demonstrated.

Onunga, represented by lawyer Grace Okumu, argued that the licensing was illegal and procedurally flawed given the 1932 proclamation, which he says prohibits human activity in the area. He also questioned the licence against articles of the constitution governing public land and the mandate of the National Land Commission, alleging the commission wrongly approved AGOL's operations and that the land transaction between the company and the Kenya Forest Service was done clandestinely. He further argued that a proper environmental impact assessment by the National Environment Management Authority should have preceded any licence.

Justice Akello declined to issue the sweeping conservatory orders the petitioner sought, which would have stopped AGOL's entire operations. She said she was mindful of the constitutional obligation to protect the environment for present and future generations and the public interest in safeguarding mangrove ecosystems, but that all parties deserved a fair opportunity to be heard before wider interim orders could be granted.

The order she did issue is narrow. Pending the hearing, AGOL and the Kenya Forest Service, along with their employees, contractors and agents, are barred from commencing any new major construction works within the licensed mangrove forest area covered by the special-use licence and its addenda. The judge said the order was intended to preserve the current physical footprint of built infrastructure within the forest and should not be read as authorising any expansion of the disturbed area.

She certified the petitioner's application urgent, admitted it for priority hearing, and ordered that the petition and supporting documents be served within two days on AGOL, the Kenya Forest Service, the National Land Commission, the National Environment Management Authority and the Attorney General.

AGOL is one of the more significant private energy-handling operations on the Kenyan coast, and it sits within the business empire of Mohamed Jaffer, among the wealthiest businessmen in the country. Jaffer built his fortune at the port of Mombasa, most prominently through Grain Bulk Handlers, which for years held a dominant position in the handling of imported dry bulk commodities such as grain and fertiliser through the port. He expanded into energy logistics, and his companies have become central to the flow of commodities through Kenya's main maritime gateway and onward into the East African interior.

That dominance has drawn scrutiny before. Jaffer's port businesses have faced competition complaints and political attention over the years, given their scale and their control of critical import infrastructure, and the AGOL case adds an environmental dimension to the questions surrounding his coastal operations.

Mangrove forests along the Kenyan coast are protected under national law and international environmental commitments, valued for their role in supporting fisheries, protecting shorelines from erosion and storing carbon. Disputes over their use have grown as commercial pressure on the coastline has intensified, pitting industrial and port development against conservation.

The matter now proceeds to an inter-partes hearing, at which AGOL and the state agencies will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations. Until then, the company remains free to continue its existing operations, but cannot break new ground within the contested forest.