Nairobi, June 25 -- Trade and regulatory arbitrage are becoming the new frontier for grand corruption in Kenya. Consider what Parliament has just done to the sugar industry.

Under the populist banner of "protecting local millers and sugarcane farmers," the Finance Act 2026 aggressively increases excise duty on imported finished table sugar from Sh7.50 to a punishing Sh40 per kilogramme.

Conversely, sugar imported as raw-and therefore classified as an "industrial raw material for refining"-has been deliberately insulated from these massive tax increases.

Compounding this discrimination, a new East African Community (EAC) Customs Management Gazette has approved duty remissions allowing industrial raw sugar to enter the region at a heavil...