NEMA Orders EPR Fee Reassessment: Compliance Uncertainty Across Kenya's Manufacturing and Import Sectors

The National Environment Management Authority has directed the Kenya Producer Responsibility Organisation to suspend its current Extended Producer Responsibility fee collection framework and convene a validation workshop to develop a compliant fee structure aligned with the Sustainable Waste Management (EPR) Regulations 2024. NEMA's Director General has explicitly stated that continued collection under the existing framework has hindered the EPR programme and undermined its regulatory objectives. The directive creates immediate compliance uncertainty for manufacturers, importers, and value chain participants across packaging, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automotive, textiles, and consumer goods , sectors that have been paying EPR fees under a framework that the regulator has now declared non-compliant. With penalties under the regulations reaching Ksh2 million or four years' imprisonment, the stakes for getting this right are material, and the absence of a compliant fee structure does not suspend the underlying EPR obligation.

On June 26, 2026, NEMA Director General Mamo B. Mamo issued a directive requiring KEPRO to reassess its EPR fee framework and engage manufacturers, importers, and other value chain players to build consensus on a revised fee structure compliant with the Sustainable Waste Management (EPR) Regulations 2024. NEMA's statement is unambiguous: the current framework under which KEPRO has been collecting fees is non-compliant with the regulations, and that non-compliance has undermined the objectives of the EPR programme.

The directive lands in a sector that is already navigating significant compliance complexity. NEMA earlier this year ordered all importers to obtain EPR import certificates before bringing goods into Kenya, adding a documentary compliance layer to the substantive fee obligations. The fee reassessment order now creates a direct conflict: importers and manufacturers are required to hold EPR compliance certificates, but the fee framework underpinning those certificates has been declared non-compliant by the same regulator that issued the certificate requirement. The resolution of that conflict depends on KEPRO's validation workshop process and NEMA's subsequent approval of a revised fee structure neither of which has a published timeline.

The EPR framework in Kenya is established under the Sustainable Waste Management Act 2022 and implemented through the Sustainable Waste Management (EPR) Regulations 2024. The regulatory design places responsibility on producers defined broadly to include manufacturers, importers, brand owners, and retailers to fund and manage the end-of-life environmental impact of the products and packaging they place on the Kenyan market. KEPRO is the designated producer responsibility organisation through which producers discharge their collective EPR obligations, funded by the fees it collects from registered producers.

The current fee structure applies a flat rate of Ksh150 per item across a wide range of product and packaging categories, covering plastics, glass, paper, aluminium, composite materials, electronics and electrical equipment, hazardous product packaging, end-of-life vehicles, and non-packaging items including textiles, rubber, tyres, and sanitary products. NEMA's complaint is not that fees should not be collected , it is that the flat-rate structure as applied does not comply with the Regulations, which presumably require a more differentiated or proportionate approach to fee-setting that reflects the actual cost of waste management across different product categories. The specific non-compliance has not been publicly detailed beyond NEMA's statement, which is itself a gap that affected businesses need resolved urgently.

The core compliance problem created by this directive is that it leaves producers in an undefined legal position with respect to their EPR obligations. The Sustainable Waste Management (EPR) Regulations 2024 impose substantive obligations on producers to fund waste management those obligations exist independently of the fee structure KEPRO uses to collect contributions. NEMA's declaration that the current framework is non-compliant does not suspend the underlying regulatory obligation; it creates uncertainty about the mechanism through which that obligation is discharged. Producers who have been paying KEPRO fees under the existing framework may find that those payments do not constitute valid discharge of their EPR obligations if the framework was non-compliant. That question whether past payments count needs a formal regulatory answer from NEMA that has not yet been provided.

The validation workshop KEPRO has been tasked to convene introduces further uncertainty about timing. Until a compliant fee structure is approved by NEMA, producers face a choice between continuing to pay under a non-compliant framework, suspending payments and risking non-compliance with the underlying EPR obligation, or seeking individual regulatory guidance from NEMA on their specific position. For importers who are also required to hold EPR import certificates as a condition of bringing goods into Kenya, the fee framework non-compliance creates a direct question about the validity of those certificates if they were issued under a non-compliant collection system. The interaction between the certificate requirement and the fee framework compliance issue is not addressed in NEMA's directive and requires urgent clarification.

The penalty exposure under the Regulations up to Ksh2 million or four years' imprisonment makes this a board-level risk issue for businesses across the affected sectors. Manufacturers and importers with high-volume product lines have material financial and criminal liability exposure if their EPR compliance position is found to be deficient. The breadth of the fee categories affected covering packaging, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, textiles, and consumer goods means that virtually every manufacturing and importing business in Kenya has skin in this regulatory dispute. Legal counsel and compliance teams should not treat this as a KEPRO administrative problem. It is a direct regulatory risk for every producer currently registered in the EPR system.

NEMA's EPR fee reassessment directive is not a technical administrative correction , it is a declaration that a fee collection system used across Kenya's manufacturing and import sectors has been operating outside its legal framework. The producers who have been paying into that system, and the importers holding certificates issued through it, now face genuine compliance uncertainty that the regulator has not yet resolved. The validation workshop will eventually produce a compliant fee structure. What the sector needs urgently, before that workshop concludes, is written regulatory clarity on what compliance looks like in the interim.