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The Charcoal Trade in Kenya: An Untold Story of Billions *

( *All research has been garnered through personal experience and word of mouth from people directly involved in the trade.)

In the last 15 or so years, Kenya has seen the charcoal industry become highly demonized, mostly through ignorance, by almost all the people who could instead lead the way in effecting a simple solution instead of repeatedly regurgitating the well worn ‘apocalyptic-end-of-days’ of our forests from the so called greedy itinerant charcoal burner.
Key in point is that this informal biomass energy industry is one of our backbone foreign exchange savers in energy (kerosene, LPG Gas etc.), it is one of the cheapest and most cost beneficial ways of clearing virgin land for agriculture and when correctly managed can be a complete and sustainable system that has vast benefits for both our social, economic and environmental health.
When one considers that a typical bag of charcoal being used in Nairobi costing upwards of 900ksh started off costing 200ksh, questions as to where the 150% gross profit increase comes from and why trees are not being replanted are raised, these questions can be summarized in one word by our most popular Kenyan pastime of the national unsustainable business model….corruption.
And as is well documented and known, this informal energy industry is worth upwards of 30 Billion Shillings a year. This means that between consumer and producer any manner of what we can term irregular cash transactions are occurring, this short essay barely scrapes the very tip of a green iceberg made of good old cash!
To put it into a bit more perspective we must take a closer look from the grassroots level, a view from the level of the ankles of the Big Men (policymakers and cartel head hancho’s). Charcoal is sometimes ‘taxed’ over 12 times but typically only about 6 different ‘players’ are engaged in energy Mafioso activity. Bribes are initially taken firstly from the charcoal maker, then the transporter and then the retailer.
At the beginning is the Community Scout, this is a member of the community who receives a stipend from a local government officer to be the ‘ears’ on the ground and who in turn is usually the first to come across charcoal makers on private or public land. When this happens the charcoal makers have by this stage already expended considerable effort felling and processing the tree and they may have the earth kiln lit, and well knowing that in their trade and that thier lot in life lacks much justice, they typically come to some sort of “quick arrangement” with the scout, a little cash on the spot or if they know one another a small future debt upon sale of the charcoal.
Then come the men on the ground in uniforms, the A.P’s or the K.W.S or the K.F.S rangers, they typically extort money at a much higher rate than the community scouts. They know that they are the LAW, they have guns, they typically possess a worldlier outlook than the Community Scout and because they usually have a much more sophisticated palate for the finer things in life they typically organize a payout that can eat up to 20% of the charcoal makers’ profit.
Once the charcoal maker has cleared his obligations to the goons on the ground and has packed his charcoal in gunny bags the transporter comes onto the scene. For the larger urban markets where most bush charcoal is destined, the charcoal is either transported by donkey or bicycle to trading centers and stored awaiting a lorry or if there is enough volume to warrant it the lorry goes to the site and collects.
On private land this can be done in a much more transparent manner, in the daytime to be exact, but on Trust or other public land they tend to do it at night to avoid the men with uniforms. Once loaded (the typical lorry can carry 300 bags of hardwood charcoal valued at app. 90,000kshs *farm gate price of 300ksh per bag and the load can be sold in town at 225,000kshs *700ksh per bag at a rough profit of 135,000ksh) they have to obtain a Transport Permit and pay whats coined as a ‘cess’ per bag. The difficulty of obtaining this goods movement permit varies according to local by-laws as does the price of the bribe to obtain it. This can be anywhere from 20,000ksh to 40,000ksh paid directly to the District Forest Officer who then remits a portion of this payout to their superiors or other potential problem makers. Even being able to establish a ‘good’ connection with the D.F.O requires working ones way through the maze of hands to be greased in his or her office, to pay for audience it’s called. If Cesar is not rendered Cesar’s dues this Permit is not obtained and the lorry will not even begin its journey and risks having all the cargo confiscated immediately(to be sold for personal profit for the D.F.O later), once the permit is obtained the costliest part of the endeavor is undertaken.
A trip on the highway of the hyenas leads the transporter being pulled over at every roadblock to produce (1.) the permit and (2.) the bribe. This is generally under 1000kshs at each stop but the transporter may have to make up to 10 stops between point a-b. Once the charcoal has reached its destination, it is either sold in bulk to restaurants, schools, nyama choma joints etc. or sold to the retailers who then break down the bags in varying small quantities for roadside and market sale. It is the small scale retailer who bears the brunt of paying out bribes. Council Askaris may insist on an ‘extra’ day hawker’s license and cartels extort protection money.

Some solutions to stopping this gross cycle of corruption are already outlined in the 2008 Charcoal Regulation Draft by The Kenya Forestry Service by implementing an enabling policy framework that can guide, license and provide a favorable business environment for private bioenergy-afforestation efforts. This coupled with increasing widespread use and manufacture of improved energy saving stoves can produce thousands of long term employment opportunities and will encourage market driven environmental conservation by giving higher monetary returns through increased value addition to biomass energy at the farm gate.
And of course with the proper dissemination and training more people will be able to plant, sustainably harvest and manufacture their own small-batch charcoal for domestic use which in turn will greatly reduce demand on remaining forests and a substantial amount of bribes.