Kenya: South Africa's Vodacom to Appeal Ruling Invalidating Safaricom Stake Sale

What the report says

Vodacom Group says it will challenge a Kenyan High Court ruling that found the sale of the government’s 15% stake in Safaricom unconstitutional and void. According to the filing cited by Capital FM and distributed by AllAfrica, the company plans to appeal to Kenya’s Court of Appeal and seek a temporary stay while the case is heard.

The ruling, issued by a three-judge bench in Nairobi on Tuesday and handed down on 15 September 2026, ordered that the stake transferred to Vodacom be returned to the state. The judgment adds another turn to a transaction that had already faced court scrutiny earlier in the year.

The sale was reported to be worth about Sh204 billion. Earlier proceedings in March 2026 briefly stopped the deal after petitioners raised constitutional concerns including public participation and data sovereignty. The Court of Appeal later lifted those suspensions, allowing the transaction to move forward. Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi had said the proceeds were intended to help seed a proposed National Infrastructure Fund and Sovereign Wealth Fund. The case matters because Safaricom is one of Kenya’s most important companies and the outcome could affect both state finances and ownership arrangements in a major telecom asset.