When an outsourcing company working for Meta found itself being sued in Kenya, it took its problem to the President.
The dispute had begun in May 2022, when former Facebook content moderator Daniel Motaung sued Sama and Meta over working conditions. Another 43 moderators brought a case in March 2023. The workers had been employed by Sama to moderate Facebook content, work that required them to repeatedly view disturbing material. They argued that Meta, which ultimately benefited from and controlled aspects of their work, should also be held responsible.
Sama was not a minor contractor in Kenya. It was part of the labour pipeline that allowed a global technology company to outsource some of the most harmful work of the internet to Kenyan workers. Meta fought to remove itself from the litigation, arguing, among other things, that Kenyan courts did not have jurisdiction over the foreign company. But on 20 September 2024, the Court of Appeal rejected that argument.
Then on 11 November 2024, less than two months after that ruling, the Business Laws (Amendment) Bill was published. It proposed new rules for Kenya’s outsourcing industry, including provisions dealing with who should carry responsibility for workers employed by outsourcing companies.
Less than a month later, on 9 December, President William Ruto publicly said Sama had approached him about its legal troubles. “Now I can report to you that we have changed the law,” he said, adding that “nobody will take you to court again on any matter.”
But the bill was still before Parliament, where a fight was unfolding over who should be held responsible for outsourced workers. Business groups including KEPSA and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers argued that responsibility should largely remain with the outsourcing company. Tech workers argued that companies that control or benefit from their work should also be held responsible. This was very important for workers trying to sue companies such as Meta rather than only their local contractors.
The workers also went to court to try to stop the bill. In June 2026, the High Court declined to intervene. On 19 August 2026, the National Assembly passed the amendments. It now awaits for presidential assent.
For James Oyange, a former content moderator, Ruto’s statement sent a clear message about whose side the government was on. Workers had gone to court seeking protection from some of the world’s most powerful technology companies; instead, he said, the government appeared to be changing the rules in the companies’ favour.
“We are on our own. It is the responsibility of the government to protect us, but they are taking Big Tech’s side. It means the companies can do what they want.”
Oyange fears that if technology companies can turn to the government when workers sue them, while workers are left with fewer ways to hold those companies responsible, the balance of power shifts even further away from workers.
The Sama case is one part of a much wider relationship between Kenya’s government and global technology companies. The Continent identified at least 12 publicly documented meetings, agreements, regulatory engagements and partnerships between the Kenyan government and Microsoft, Google, Amazon, TikTok and Starlink since 2023.
The investigation also found a pattern across these relationships. Major technology companies are being brought into public services, infrastructure and policymaking, often through agreements the public cannot see. At the same time, laws and policies are being developed that can make it easier for these companies to operate. What is much harder to find is who negotiated these arrangements, what Kenya agreed to in return, and who is checking whether they serve the public interest.
Agriculture is one example. In 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture signed an agreement with Microsoft to use technology to improve farming and food security. Microsoft would provide cloud technology for digital tools using information about weather, pests, farming inputs and production.
The partnership expanded in 2022, when AGRA joined Microsoft on a digital agriculture programme that included Agribot known as Kuzabot, a service that sends farmers advice by SMS and WhatsApp. According to the Community Alliance for Global Justice’s 2023 report on Microsoft and AGRA’s digital farming projects Kuzabot could send product recommendations and allow agricultural advisers linked to seed, fertiliser and pesticide companies to advertise through bulk messages. The same research described Microsoft’s agricultural cloud infrastructure as an “all-in-one platform” designed to bring agricultural services and data together. That concern is more pressing as Kenya now plans to bring its fragmented farming data and digital services onto one national platform after years of private technology partnerships whose full terms remain largely out of public view.
Neither Microsoft nor the ministry provided the full agreement after requests from The Continent.
However, the concern goes beyond Microsoft. Research published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation warns that digital farming platforms can draw farmers into systems shaped by technology companies, agribusinesses and philanthropic organisations. This can create new markets for seeds, pesticides, insurance and credit all built around information farmers provide about themselves and their farms.
AGRA is not a minor player. It has helped shape agricultural policy across the continent, and its major funders include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Gates Foundation also held Microsoft shares until early 2026.
By 2026, Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture drafted the Kenya Agricultural Data, Information and Digital Policy which is meant to create one national platform for agricultural information and data, bringing information currently spread across different farming systems into one place.
But it also raises a basic accountability problem. After years of MoUs, cloud partnerships, AI pilots, chatbot services and donor-backed agricultural technology projects, Kenya is now building public infrastructure that could connect them.
Human rights lawyer and digital rights expert Ibrahim Oduor said Kenya’s Data Protection Act should govern how these MoUs operate. The law sets conditions for cross-border data transfers and places data protection at the centre of public and private data systems.
But cloud-first strategies complicate this. Microsoft Azure depends on global or regional data centres that may not be located in Kenya. When farmer or citizen data is stored outside local jurisdiction, it becomes harder to know which laws apply, who has access to the data, and how citizens can enforce their rights.
Oduor also said a Data Protection Impact Assessment should be carried out before such agreements are signed. This process is meant to identify risks, assess how personal data will be collected and used, and ensure that safeguards are in place before public data systems are built around private technology providers.
The same pattern can be seen at Konza Technopolis, Kenya’s flagship smart city south of Nairobi. In August 2026, the government authority running Konza signed an MoU with Amazon Web Services to expand the use of cloud technology in public institutions and provide training in data, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Konza is a major part of Kenya’s long-term development plan and has increasingly been opened to private investment. However, five years before this MoU Kenya passed a law making it easier for private companies to invest in public development projects. Konza Technopolis was one of the major projects the government hoped to develop through these public-private partnerships.
When asked about the details of the MOU and the relationship AWS said it was proud to support Kenya’s cloud adoption journey and that the MOU covers cloud skills and adoption initiatives. “It does not cover the Kenyan government’s use of any AWS cloud services and carries no financial commitment.”
The Continent then tried to establish who was checking these relationships. More than a dozen opposition representatives were approached, including members of parliamentary committees responsible for agriculture, ICT and labour. Despite repeated requests, none agreed to explain what oversight Parliament had exercised over these agreements. Government departments and agencies did not provide the agreements requested or explain how technology partners had been selected, while the technology companies contacted did not respond to questions about their relationships with the government by the time of publication.
Digital rights lawyer Victor Kiamba said Kenya’s Constitution already requires public procurement to be “fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective”. But when agreements are not available for scrutiny, he said, it becomes difficult to establish whether those requirements have been met. “We cannot ensure compliance with law and procedure.”
Kiamba said the stakes are higher when private technology becomes embedded in public infrastructure, potentially creating long-term dependence on particular providers and risks around data security.
Digital rights expert Irene Makau said the agreements also cannot be viewed separately from the laws and policies developing around them. Changes may appear unrelated to individual technology deals, she said, but together can make it easier for companies to operate. “You find legislation being pushed here that doesn’t necessarily seem to have any correlation to another,” she said, “and yet, they are meant to facilitate ease of operation.”
For Makau, Kenya’s growing reliance on a handful of global technology companies also raises questions about who controls the country’s digital infrastructure and whether local companies can compete.
“Why are these Big Tech companies being glorified as though we have options?” she said, pointing to action by South Africa’s Competition Commission against anti-competitive practices by major technology companies. “Why can’t the same be done here? Here, where [Kenya] is apparently the home of innovation, yet we are being trained only to work for and with monopolies.”
Kenya wants technology investment, jobs and better public services. There is nothing unusual about government working with private technology companies to achieve those goals. What is unusual is how little Kenyans can see of the bargain being made.
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This story was made possible with support from the Pulitzer Center and forms part of the Africa leg of Big Tech’s Invisible Hand, a cross-border collaborative investigation led by Brazilian news organisation Agência Pública and the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP).
This article was first published by Business Day SA.
