Matatu strike leaves vegetable vendors counting losses as supplies dwindle
Traders buy sukuma wiki at Wakulima Market in Nairobi on April 7, 2026. The matatu strike on Monday and Tuesday left vegetable traders counting losses as supplies dwindled.
What you need to know:
- Women vegetable vendors say rising transport costs and dwindling supplies pushed their businesses to the brink during the matatu strike that was called off on Tuesday.
- Informal traders dependent on daily earnings struggled to survive as transport disruptions cut access to markets.
By lunchtime on Tuesday, when Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen announced that the government and public transport stakeholders had agreed to suspend the matatu strike for a week to allow further negotiations, vegetable vendors were already grappling with how to recover the losses they had incurred.
A 2022 study on informal markets and income levels among vegetable vendors’ households in rural western Kenya, published in the Journal of Research Innovation and Implications in Education, found that informal vegetable markets were highly gendered, with women making up 90 per cent of vendors compared to 10 per cent for men. While not official or conclusive, the findings reflect the gender dynamics within the sector.
The study also found that vegetable vending was the main source of income for 67 per cent of the vendors’ households. On average, a vendor earned Sh300 daily from the business while spending between Sh150 and Sh200 on operational costs, reflecting a livelihood largely centred on survival.
By 5am on Tuesday, Agnes Njoroge, a vegetable vendor in the Utawala area of Nairobi, had arrived at the Ruai market, where she replenishes her stock. Usually, she goes to the market between 6am and 7am after her children have left for school. This time, however, the children were still at home after their school suspended learning because of the strike.
Scramble for sukuma wiki
The situation was also different. By 6am, matatus operating against the orders of their leaders had disappeared from the roads. Desperate to reach the market, she was lucky to find a matatu in the early hours charging Sh50, up from the usual Sh30 she paid before the fare hikes.
When she arrived, she found scores of other women trying to restock sukuma wiki, with wholesalers rationing the little produce that remained. “Everyone was scrambling for sukuma wiki unlike before because there was little left, and the brokers said what they had was the remainder from Monday,” she said.
“We were not allowed to select the vegetables ourselves like before. They were the ones handing out bundles of sukuma wiki at Sh70 instead of Sh50 and the bundles had fewer stalks. Each person was restricted to three bundles. If you complained, they rudely told you to leave.”
Disappointed with a nearly empty basket, she had to return home. It was already past 6am, and there were no matatus in sight. “I took a boda boda and paid Sh250 for a trip that usually costs Sh100. There is no profit I’m going to make from this, but I have to be careful with my pricing so that I can at least recover the transport cost.”
A similar dilemma faced Evaline Nduva, who sells vegetables in the Mihang’o area of the capital. Like many others, she feared being stranded once the few public service vehicles still operating withdrew from the roads. She had also left home a few minutes before 5am, unlike before, when she would head for Kayole to fetch supplies after 7am.
“I was among the women who had arrived early at the sukuma wiki supplier,” she said. “I paid a Sh70 fare for a route where I usually pay Sh30.”
At the supplier’s stall, she said, the atmosphere was chaotic enough for an outsider to mistake it for a fight, as traders competed for the limited vegetables available. “Usually, they lay out the vegetables for us to choose and buy as much as we want,” she said.
“But this time, they were simply scooping up bundles, estimating the weight with their hands, shouting ‘Sh50’, and handing them over. They sold only one bundle to each of us. I was lucky. Those who came after me went home empty-handed.”
Agnes and Evaline both feared what another day of disruption would mean for their businesses and families. “The only thing I’m praying for is that before the day ends, they will have found a solution and ended the strike. Otherwise, I don’t know whether we will find anything in the market to sell tomorrow,” Evaline said.
Cushion from shocks
Carren Kwamboka, the chairperson of the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders, said her members were hand-to-mouth traders who could not survive even a single day without stock or customers.
“Tell me, what happens to a vendor who depends on Sh300 profit every day to feed her children? What have you done to them when they have nothing to sell, or when rising fares eat into their profits? If they also raise commodity prices too high, customers will not buy, and the produce will go to waste,” she asked.
She called on the government to consider the micro and small-scale traders who depend on matatus to transport their wares to introduce measures to cushion them from such shocks.
