Nairobi, Aug. 4 -- The Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) has suffered a fresh blow after the High Court rejected its push to impose factory taxes on a book publisher, marking a back-to-back defeat for the agency.

The court rejected an appeal by Kebs, seeking to revive a Sh52 million standards levy against book printer Oxford University Press East Africa, saying that book publishers are not manufacturers and cannot be subject to the levy under the Standards Act.

This is the second such verdict in favour of book publishers in a fight against the monthly Kebs factory tax, which is charged at 0.2 percent of the monthly turnover of goods manufactured or services offered, with the Standards (Standards Levy) Order 2025 capping it at Sh4 million...