Kenya still needs KSh 452.9 million to finish rehabilitating and redeveloping its government-owned properties in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Daily Nation reported. The work includes the embassy chancery in Kinshasa, which was vandalised during violent protests in January 2025.
In its latest budget review, the State Department for Foreign Affairs said it had spent KSh 147.1 million on the KSh 600 million project by June. That puts the project at 24.5 per cent complete. It spent KSh 120 million on repairs and upgrades in the year to June, and KSh 27.1 million in the year before.
"The Mission was attacked during the recent political riots in the host country where the Chancery was vandalised. Rehabilitation of the Chancery, estimated at Sh120 million, is ongoing," the ministry wrote in its report to the National Treasury.
The government has set aside another KSh 150 million for new staff houses and chancery renovations in the current financial year, which ends in June 2027. It proposes KSh 250 million for the following year. The staff houses are meant to cut rent costs. Kenya owns four properties in the DRC. According to the Nation, three of them were "dilapidated and condemned" even before the attack.
The budget review leaves open whether Kenya will recover any of the cost from Kinshasa. After the attack, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said DRC security officers had watched and done nothing. He said the DRC Foreign Minister had committed to assess the damage and compensate Kenya. The report does not say whether any compensation has been paid, agreed or factored into the works.
The protests broke out after Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized Goma, a major city in eastern DRC. Protesters in Kinshasa also attacked the embassies of Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa and the United States. At the time, relations between Nairobi and Kinshasa were strained, partly over Kenya's close ties with Rwanda, the Nation reported.
Kinshasa had repeatedly refused to accredit Kenya's nominated ambassadors. President William Ruto later appointed engineer Peter Tum, who took office in May 2025. Trade has grown since the DRC joined the EAC in July 2022. Kenyan exports to the country rose to KSh 37.08 billion in 2025 from KSh 29.83 billion a year earlier, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. That made the DRC Kenya's fourth-largest export market in Africa, after Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.