Leasing a pharmacy license is not a clever side hustle as it destroys jobs, endangers patient safety and makes the pharmacist an accessory to felony.
The recent High Court ruling affirmation that medical facilities from Level 4 and above must be overseen by qualified degree-holding pharmacists is a landmark victory which reinforces our role in safeguarding patient care and upholding professional standards. The November 24, 2025, ruling now arms pharmacists with a strong legal weapon to protect public health.
Yet even with this win, our greatest threat comes from within: the entrenched practice of license leasing. It erodes our profession, fuels criminal activity, and exposes pharmacists to career-ending consequences that can unravel a hard-earned license in an instant.
The answer to the question, “Should pharmacists lease their licenses?” remains an absolute NO. This illegal act creates a vacuum of responsibility, which, when coupled with the trade in controlled substances, ceases to be a mere ethical lapse and becomes a matter of felony and public endangerment.
Leasing a license is not a smart side hustle; it is a professional felony that destroys jobs, endangers patients, and converts the pharmacist into an unwitting criminal accessory. The token payment of Ksh30,000 or Ksh40,000 monthly is nothing less than blood money paid in exchange for unlimited legal liability and the annihilation of one’s career.
According to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), a pharmacist who leases their license becomes a ‘Ghost Superintendent’—a name on a wall with no physical presence or control. One person can only superintend over one premise at a time, yet absentee superintending has become rampant.
Diversion of controlled drugs into the hands of drug abusers or criminal networks
License leasing is cheaper than hiring a full-time pharmacist, propagating unemployment for pharmacy graduates. With at least nine universities in Kenya now offering pharmacy degrees (up from one in 1978), and the program having expanded from four to five years, hundreds of new graduates enter the market annually, only to find their employment prospects undermined by license leasing.
The most terrifying consequence of absentee superintending is the diversion of controlled drugs, highly addictive substances like certain painkillers or sedatives, into the hands of drug abusers or criminal networks.
When the superintendent is not physically present, the facility’s day-to-day operations fall to unqualified, unsupervised personnel, or worse, motivated criminals exploiting the regulatory loophole.
Consider this composite scenario, drawn from numerous regulatory crackdown reports in Kenya:
Dr Ken Tiba*, a respected university lecturer, decides to earn an extra Ksh40,000 a month by ‘leasing’ his license to Mr John Tabibu, the operator of a retail pharmacy in Kamulu along Kangundo Road. Dr Tiba believes he’s just signing documents and collecting a cheque; he never visits the premises more than twice a year.
Mr Tabibu, who is not a pharmacist, quickly realises the pharmacy’s biggest profit point is the illegal sale of controlled drugs like codeine cough syrups or benzodiazepines (like diazepam) without a valid prescription. He instructs his minimally trained counter assistants to sell them to known abusers. These sales are cash-only, highly profitable, and typically kept off the official logbook to evade tax and regulatory scrutiny.
A patient is found overdosing on a cocktail of illegally acquired sedatives. The ensuing police and PPB investigation traces the drugs back to Mr Tabibu’s pharmacy. The facility is raided.
The counter assistant confesses the owner instructed them to sell drugs without prescription
The PPB inspectors find controlled drug records unmaintained or falsified (a violation of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, Cap 244). The stock is depleted far beyond the legally recorded sales. The counter assistant confesses that the owner instructed them to sell without a prescription.
Dr Tiba’s name is on the license. He is legally the Superintendent Pharmacist, fully and personally responsible for every action that occurred. He faces charges of professional misconduct, negligence, and potentially even criminal conspiracy in the diversion of controlled substances.
The result is not just a fine, but immediate license revocation (deregistration); his entire professional life, reputation, and career are annihilated for a paltry Ksh40,000 monthly fee he received while teaching an undergraduate class.
Imagine a wholesale pharmaceutical facility along Mombasa Road, superintended remotely by a pharmacist who is busy elsewhere. The facility distributes temperature-sensitive vaccines and crucial medicines.
Since the Superintendent is absent, there is no one qualified to maintain the mandated temperature and humidity logs for cold-chain medicines or to conduct regular audits for expired stock. The facility manager, focused only on sales, ignores the need to rotate inventory (First Expiry, First Out—FEFO).
Large quantities of expired anti-malarials and antibiotics still stored alongside current stock
A PPB inspector conducts an unannounced visit. They discover a high-value batch of essential vaccines stored outside the legal temperature range, rendering them either ineffective or potentially dangerous. They also find large quantities of expired anti-malarials and antibiotics that should have been segregated and destroyed, but are still stored alongside current stock, potentially leading to accidental dispensing.
The facility’s license has been suspended, and the entire inventory is currently quarantined. The Superintendent Pharmacist, whose license was leased, is found liable for gross carelessness and failure to comply with statutory storage and quality control requirements. This constitutes a severe violation, and the pharmacist’s career is irrevocably damaged, not for drug dealing, but for a fatal lapse in basic inventory and quality management.
Poor inventory management directly contributes to significant stockouts and wastage, compromising the availability of life-saving drugs. The ethical and legal nightmares are overshadowed only by the economic betrayal of colleagues.
By accepting a monthly rental fee to satisfy a regulatory requirement, the leasing pharmacist tells the entire market that the professional presence of a pharmacist is negotiable and worth only a tiny fraction of a legitimate salary (which should be over Ksh150,000 a month).
Every pharmacist must recognise that Ksh40,000 is a bribe to look the other way
We are our own enemies! By leasing licenses, we willingly devalue the profession, making it a target for cost-cutting companies who gleefully choose to fire a full-time employee or deny a new graduate a job, which creates unemployment that then tempts the desperate to lease their license, perpetuating the deadly cycle of professional misconduct.
The PPB has made clear that when an unqualified person is arrested at a licensed business, the owner who is a professional will face disciplinary measures.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya (PSK) must seize this moment to become a fierce and uncompromising enforcer. It is time for a zero-tolerance policy where deregistration is the default penalty for absentee superintending.
Every pharmacist must recognise that the Ksh40,000 is a bribe to look the other way while the profession is dismantled and public safety is risked. The time for moral cowardice is over.
We must all, collectively, say NO to leasing licenses, insist on working where our name is displayed, and begin the necessary fight for the standardised, respectable remuneration package that our critical role in the health system demands. Our integrity is the foundation of our profession; we cannot afford to sell it.
Dr Madeline Iseren is a pharmacist and columnist on topical health and medical issues.
