Cash‑Strapped KBC Opens Nearly 2,000 Acres for Lease to Survive
The national broadcaster is out of airtime — but not out of land.
Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) is sitting on a fortune it can’t afford to ignore. Buried under an estimated Sh90 billion in debt and crippled by cash flow chaos, the State agency has done the math: idle acres are untapped lifelines.
KBC has officially listed 1,909.9 acres across the country for long‑term leases. Farming. Temporary business ventures. Anything that brings revenue.
The land portfolio includes 1,234 acres in Donyo Sabuk Komarock, 200 acres in Maralal, 200 in Kitale, 146.5 at Marania transmission site, 100 at Nyamninia, 29 at Kapsimotwa, and even 0.4 acres at Sauti House Mombasa.
Why now? Two reasons.
First, to stop illegal encroachment and land grabbing. Second, because the government has ordered parastatals to stop begging the exchequer and start generating their own income.
KBC is not alone.
This move is part of the State’s broader Land Commercialisation Initiative (LCI) — a plan to lease up to 500,000 acres of idle public land and attract at least Sh65 billion in agricultural investment. The targets are ambitious: cut the staple food deficit by 50 percent, create 1.1 million jobs, and boost farmer incomes.
Other public land already on the table includes 200 acres at Egerton University for an agro‑science park, 10,000 acres at Galana Kulalu, 25,000 acres at Bura irrigation scheme, and 10,000 acres in Tana Delta for rice.
At the Bura scheme, the government is offering 25,000 acres under 21‑year renewable leases for commercial sugarcane production. The National Irrigation Authority plans to allocate 45,000 acres for rice and 50,000 for sugarcane in the long run.
Even Moi University has joined the scramble, opening 1,500 acres at its Kesses campus for 60‑month maize farming leases.
For KBC, the message is clear: the days of sitting on idle land are over. If the broadcaster can’t pay its Sh90 billion debt, it will farm its way out — one acre at a time.