Profile of smoking bans in Kenya...

Smoking bans are becoming more prevelant throughout the African continent, because the African continent has nothing else to worry about.

From The East African

Kenya’s besieged tobacco industry is toying with the idea of covertly sponsoring dozens of litigants to sue city and town councils who have banned smoking in public areas for infringing on their constitutional right to smoke, even as more towns line up to impose similar bans.

Some industry players are, however, concerned that a vigorous fight-back by the sector will be counter-productive, attracting international attention to the issue.

Last week, Kenya’s capital Nairobi became the latest urban area to outlaw public smoking, following in the footsteps of the smaller municipalities of Nakuru, Kangundo and Mombasa. Nakuru, Kenya’s fourth largest city, pioneered the bans three months ago.

Other Kenyan cities expected to pass smoking curbs in the next two weeks include Eldoret and Kisumu. Uganda’s tobacco control lobby welcomed the Kenyan bans, pointing out that they were in line with those in such cities as New York, London and Dublin.


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The bans by the Kenyan town and city councils are the second prong of a strategy devised by the country’s tobacco control activists, who have long complained that the enactment of national control legislation has been blocked by vested interests for more than six years.

As a result, Kenya’s Tobacco control Bill has been published every year since 2001, but has always lapsed and never been passed into law. Last week, however, the Bill went through its second reading and indications are that it will be passed before parliament goes on recess in August.