NAIROBI, Kenya, June 25 – Several companies in Nairobi are assessing damages and counting losses after looters took benefit of Wednesday’s Gen-Z-led protests to interrupt into retailers and steal items value tens of millions of shillings.
Shops positioned alongside Tom Mboya Street, Moi Avenue, Kirinyaga Road, Outer Ring Road, and River Road had been among the many hardest hit.
Business homeowners reported destruction and lack of merchandise throughout the unrest.
David Kimani, who operates a cellphone restore store at Metho House alongside River Road, mentioned his retailer was fully ransacked, with looters making away with high-end gadgets, together with buyer telephones resembling Samsung fashions.
“I have no idea the place to start out from,” Kimani advised Capital FM Business. “They took all the things. I don’t suppose I can reopen until I get some type of assist.”
Kimani additionally expressed frustration over what he described because the absence of police intervention, saying the looters had sufficient time to filter his retailer with out being stopped.
This just isn’t the primary time Kimani has suffered enterprise loss. In 2019, he misplaced one other outlet after the Sanford Building caught hearth.
Like many small-scale merchants in Kenya, he didn’t have insurance coverage protection resulting from what he referred to as an advanced course of.
Kenya has a comparatively low uptake of enterprise insurance coverage, particularly amongst small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) not too long ago urged entrepreneurs to think about insurance coverage to guard towards dangers resembling hearth, theft, and civil unrest.
According to the IRA, Kenya ranks fourth in Africa in insurance coverage penetration at 2.4 % — nonetheless considerably decrease than South Africa’s estimated 12 %.
Yesterday additionally, a Bata shoe retailer alongside Outer Ring Road in Pipeline was additionally looted throughout the protests, with demonstrators making away with faculty sneakers and different merchandise.
For enterprise homeowners like Kimani, restoration now relies on exterior help, loans, or ranging from scratch.
By Felix Kipkirui and Phinea Mwenda
