Category: Business Daily

The High Court has declined to freeze the government’s Sh5 trillion National Infrastructure Fund (NIF), saying a blanket suspension would interfere with executive functions and ongoing public interest projects.

Justice Patricia Nyaundi, however, ordered the Treasury to disclose certified accounts and regularly report all deposits, withdrawals and allocations pending the determination of a constitutional petition challenging NIF’s legality.

The court found the petition raises arguable constitutional questions over the fund’s legal framework but held that a blanket suspension would not strike the proper balance between constitutional oversight and ongoing public functions.

It directed the Treasury to file accounts certified by the Auditor-General within 30 days or August 24, showing money received since the start of the fund, the dates when deposits were made into Central Bank of Kenya or commercial bank accounts operated as well as every transaction, expenditure and allocation.

The government will continue filing transaction reports in court every three months from November 30 until the petition is determined, says the ruling.

About Sh20 billion from an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and another Sh244 billion from Safaricom stake sale were earmarked as seed capital for the fund.

The fund is supposed to invest in roads, irrigation projects, energy-generation plants and the country’s main airport, without increasing public debt.

The creation of the fund, which was established under the National Infrastructure Fund Act, 2026, has been challenged for lack of public participation and lack of proof on how Parliament will oversee it.

The petitioners argue that it could receive proceeds from the sale of strategic public assets outside ordinary budgetary controls.

“The issues raised touching on the constitutionality of the statutory framework, the scope of legislative authority and the alleged derogation from constitutional safeguards are neither frivolous nor insubstantial,” she said.

“They present bona fide questions that properly fall within the court’s mandate to interrogate the constitutionality of legislation.”

The petition was filed by four Kenyans led by a Nakuru-based consultant surgeon, Dr Magare Gikenyi Benjamin.

“A national public fund cannot be established under any other statutory regime, including as a limited liability company under the Companies Act,” say the petitioners in their court filings.

They further contend that “Parliament must approve the establishment of a national public fund as well as ongoing oversight of the operations of such a fund.”

The petition also questioned whether the fund complied with constitutional provisions on the distribution of functions between national and county governments, management of public finances, the Controller of Budget’s oversight role and Parliament’s constitutional responsibilities.

The government opposed the application to suspend the fund, arguing that the Act is constitutionally safe and that it has already started work.

The law provides for the fund to be managed by an independent board and a competitively recruited chief executive, with the board responsible for overseeing investments and operations.

Recently, the Treasury advertised the position of the chief executive after Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi appointed six members to the board for three-year terms effective July 8.

The government said the proceeds from the sale of the government’s 65 percent stake in KPC had already been deposited in the fund and that proceeds from the sale of the State’s 15 percent ownership in Safaricom are set to be received.

It argued that interim orders could not reverse actions already taken.

Justice Nyaundi agreed that the court was not required to determine the merits of the constitutional challenge at the early stage of the litigation.

However, she found that continued implementation of the statutory framework without interim safeguards could undermine the effectiveness of any eventual judgment.

“The statutory scheme at issue contemplates ongoing and substantial financial transactions, some of which have already occurred and others that are imminent,” said the court.

“If those processes continue unchecked while constitutional questions remain unresolved, the petitioners’ challenge may be overtaken by events,” it added.

Even so, the court declined to halt the law’s operation.

“The balance of convenience does not favour a blanket prohibition. Rather, it favours ensuring that any ongoing activities of the fund are conducted transparently within public view and subject to constitutional safeguards,” the court said.

The court directed parties to prepare the petition for hearing after the respondents file outstanding responses and any supplementary affidavits.

Seven months ago, Asahi Group Holdings agreed to buy Diageo’s controlling stake in East African Breweries – a $ 2.3 billion transaction, one of the largest cross-border deals the local market has seen in years, and one from which the Exchequer stood to gain roughly Sh40 billion in capital gains tax alone. Seven months on, the deal remains stuck.

The latest development is that the competition authority has escalated the matter to the Attorney-General – an implicit admission that the regulator itself is unsure of its own footing.

This is not a story about a regulator rigorously following the law. It is about a regulator that appears unable to make a decision.

Consider the record. The Competition Authority of Kenya first proposed a two-year timeline for settling a pecuniary penalty, then revised it to seven days.

It required that payments due to government be parked in an escrow account – a demand that sits uneasily with the Public Finance Management framework the state itself is bound by.

It tried to compress an agreed 40-day settlement window with complainants down to seven days, despite not being party to those settlement agreements in the first place.

Late in the process, it floated raising the penalty by as much as sevenfold, after months of negotiation had already taken place.

And it introduced, seemingly from nowhere, a demand to retain 10 percent of the entire transaction value in escrow – a condition that exists in no statute.

Each of these might be defensible in isolation. Together, they describe a pattern: an administration of competition law improvising in real time, on a transaction of national significance, months after the parties believed they had reached an understanding with the regulator.

Compounding the chaos is the fact that the Competition Appeals Tribunal – the body where parties can challenge decisions of the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) – has been virtually inactive since mid-2025, because the terms of its chairperson and key members expired several months ago. The board currently has only one member instead of seven.

Meanwhile, the Capital Markets Authority granted a mandatory takeover offer exemption, only for its implementation to be suspended by a court order sought by a third party. Litigation has multiplied across court stations, prompting the Judiciary itself to intervene and consolidate the files in Nairobi to stop what increasingly looked like forum shopping.

A coordinated campaign by fund managers has sought to reopen the commercial logic of a privately negotiated shareholder transfer altogether, months after signing.

Here is the question every serious investor is now entitled to ask before committing capital to Kenya: if I sign a merger agreement today, is there any credible basis for expecting it to close within six months? On the evidence of this transaction, the honest answer is no – not because of the underlying commercial logic, but because the process for approving it has no fixed floor.

The rules can be renegotiated by the regulator after the fact, unilaterally, and the goalposts can move again the moment the parties think they have reached them.

This is the real cost of the Asahi-Diageo saga, and it is far larger than the Sh40 billion in tax revenue at stake.

Clearly; the single greatest deterrent to foreign direct investment in Kenya is not tax policy, not infrastructure, not even the cost of capital.

It is the insensate instability of our competition regulation, and the absence of honour and good faith on the part of regulators who are supposed to be the guarantors of a predictable process.

Investors do not require regulators to say yes.

They require regulators to mean what they say when they say anything at all. A regulator that agrees to a 40-day settlement window and then unilaterally shortens it to seven; that agrees to a two-year penalty schedule and then demands payment within a week; that negotiates a penalty figure and then proposes multiplying it sevenfold without new facts to justify it – that regulator has broken the one thing capital actually prices: certainty.

The Asahi-Diageo transaction was supposed to be the easy case – two willing multinational parties, a company with no pending disputes with the competition authority, and a deal structure that preserved local listing, local jobs, and local management.

If even this deal cannot move predictably through Kenya’s regulatory architecture, no foreign board of directors evaluating an African market entry will conclude that theirs will fare better.

Regulators must be bound by the timelines and conditions they themselves set, not free to revise them under pressure from whichever constituency shouts loudest that month.

Rebound in the bond and equities market has triggered talent wars among stockbrokers seeking to grow their market share and take a larger slice of revenues from trading of the securities.

The wars, mainly targeting traders and research analysts, have been earnest in the last six months as the bourse sustained improved performance that has lured new listings and investors.

It has seen nearly a dozen seasoned traders and market analysts change employers together with an increase in internal promotions to retain talent.

Capital A Investment Bank, which maintained its leadership in Kenya’s bond market with a 22 percent market share at the end of June, has strengthened its research capability while investing in internal talent development as competition for experienced professionals intensifies.

“When markets are performing well, there is always a tendency for firms to re-equip their dealing desks,” said Linus Kang’ara, chief executive officer of Capital A Investment Bank.

“Rather than looking externally, we chose to strengthen and retain our existing talent by giving them greater visibility across both local and international markets, while backing them with a robust research capability. As part of that strategy, we appointed seasoned economist Churchill Ogutu to lead our Research Department,” he said.

Mr Ogutu joined Capital A in April from IC Group, an investment bank with regional operations, following the exit of Ronnie Chokaa as a senior research analyst. Mr Chokaa joined Sterling Capital Limited as a fixed income trader.

Kestrel Capital, which is under new leadership following a management buyout last year, has strengthened its equities desk with new hires. Gerry Ndung’u was poached from Pergamon Investment Bank while Anne Musyoka was brought in from Dry Associates. The stock brokerage also hired Caleb Nyangao and Kenneth Mutuura from the Nairobi International Financial Centre (NIFC).

Kestrel Capital traded shares worth Sh19.5 billion in the six months to June which was more than thrice the Sh5.9 billion traded in the same period last year. Its market share however shrunk due to the Sh204.3 billion bulk trade of Safaricom shares from the government to Vodacom executed by KCB Investment Bank and SBG Securities.

This trade lifted the two to be the top ranking in terms of market share with SBG Securities moving from second to first position with a 34.9 percent market share.

The trade propelled KCB Investment Bank from position 18 to second with a market share of 32.07 percent up from 0.78 percent. Kweli Capital which recently acquired Old Mutual Securities is seeking talent for its research desk as it seeks to revamp its trading capabilities.

Conventional banks have also moved into investment banking and fund management in a bid to keep money from corporate savers in their vaults. Customers are no longer just looking for a safe place to keep their money but also a return.

This has further fueled the talent wars with most commercial teams looking for players who are ready to go to market and grab the moment and not greenhorns. CIC Group, Ecobank Kenya and KCB Group are currently in the market for portfolio managers.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange -as measured by market capitalisation- was up 27.8 percent, or Sh817.2 billion in six months to reach a record high of Sh3.76 trillion as at June 30.

This was boosted by the listing of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) on March 11, which was the first Initial Public Offering in 18 years, and Family Bank Limited on June 23.

This has resulted in increased participation by investors, with the value of equities traded in the six months to June growing more than five-fold to Sh644.5 billion up from Sh112 billion same time last year.

The value of bonds traded over the six months to June rose by 22.4 percent to 3.4 trillion compared to Sh2.78 trillion traded over a similar period last year.

The Treasury has cut its target for net domestic borrowing for the fiscal year ending next June by Sh132 billion, reducing the risk of crowding out the private sector in access to credit and easing pressure on borrowing costs.

The target for net domestic financing has been lowered to Sh898 billion from Sh1.03 trillion, just a month after the 2026/27 Budget Statement was presented on June 11.

The Treasury will instead borrow more from foreign markets to offset the reduction in domestic borrowing from banks, pension funds and insurance firms through Treasury bills and bonds, underscoring improved prospects for securing external financing.

The cut in domestic borrowing is expected to increase the pool of funds available in banks for lending to households and businesses.

It will also strengthen the government’s efforts to lower borrowing costs by reducing competition for funds in the domestic market, allowing banks to lower deposit and lending rates.

The government’s overall borrowing target for the fiscal year remains unchanged at Sh1.145 trillion.

“The resulting fiscal deficit, including grants, is Sh1.145 trillion (5.5 percent of GDP) and will be financed by net external financing of Sh247.2 billion (1.2 percent of GDP) and net domestic financing of Sh898 billion (4.3 percent of GDP),” the National Treasury said in its latest disclosures.

The Treasury had initially planned to finance the deficit through Sh116.2 billion in net external borrowing – equivalent to 0.6 percent of GDP – and Sh1.03 trillion in net domestic borrowing, equivalent to 4.9 percent of GDP.

The increase in external financing reflects improved prospects for raising funds abroad as the Treasury seeks to diversify its borrowing sources.

The diversification of external funding is aimed at improving debt sustainability by broadening the investor base, extending debt maturities and lowering financing costs.

“The government is evaluating opportunities to access new and diversified international capital markets. This includes the potential issuance of Samurai bonds in the Japanese market and Panda bonds in the Chinese domestic market,” Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said on June 11.

“By tapping into these markets, the government stands to benefit from deep and diversified pools of capital, secure potentially competitive financing terms, and promote currency diversification within the debt portfolio, thereby reducing reliance on traditional funding sources.”

The lower target for domestic financing is expected to ease pressure on credit markets and support continued growth in private sector lending.

Private sector credit has recovered over the past 20 months, growing 9.3 percent in May 2026 compared with two percent a year earlier.

The recovery has been supported by successive cuts in the Central Bank Rate (CBR), which has fallen from 13 percent in 2024 to 8.75 percent.

Average lending rates declined to 14.5 percent in May 2026 from 15.4 percent a year earlier.

Credit growth has remained strong in key sectors of the economy, particularly trade, agriculture, and building and construction.

The revised financing plan will hold if the Exchequer meets its tax revenue targets or contains public spending.

In previous years, revenue shortfalls have widened the fiscal deficit, forcing the government to borrow more domestically.

For instance, the Treasury exceeded its net domestic borrowing target by Sh161.7 billion in the fiscal year ended June 2026.

Net domestic borrowing totalled Sh1.135 trillion, against an approved target of Sh973.6 billion.

Of this amount, Sh993.1 billion was raised through the sale of Treasury bills and bonds by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

Talent, Emmanuel Mugo says, has never been the hardest part of acting.

Rejection is.

Before working on the second season of The Agency, the American spy thriller television series featuring Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere, Mugo spent years navigating failed auditions, financial uncertainty and long stretches without work.

Those setbacks, he says, became the foundation of a career that has taken him from a Tahidi High extra to one of Kenya’s most experienced stunt performers on international productions.

“There has been a lot of learning, a lot of connecting with fellow artistes and learning from them, but there has also been rejection. You can be very good and still not get the role.”

For many aspiring actors, rejection is interpreted as failure. For Mugo, it eventually became part of the job description.

“That experience years has helped me build resilience and self-acceptance. Even if you’ve been rejected, you have to keep moving.”

Unlike traditional professions where progression follows a predictable ladder, acting often means long periods of waiting punctuated by short bursts of intense activity. There are months when projects flow and months when phones simply stop ringing.

“That’s why diversification is key. Having a side hustle is important in this industry.”

While many know him as an actor, Mugo has steadily expanded his skill set over the years, becoming a stunt performer, stunt coordinator and assistant director. Today, he co-runs a company known as Stunt It alongside fellow stunt performer Mickey Stunts.

His entry into stunt work came more than a decade ago through veteran Kenyan stunt coordinator Charles Kembero.

“He got me into the first season of Sense8, trained me on the basics and we kicked off from there. Without Kembero, honestly, The Agency would not exist for me. Sense8 was my first stunt gig ever.”

Mugo’s fascination with acting began in childhood while watching the 1990s action series Renegade starring Lorenzo Lamas.

“I really wanted to do what he was doing,” he recalls.

His TV opportunity came in 2012 as an extra in the Kenyan teen drama, Tahidi High. It would take another 13 years before he found himself working on The Agency.

From there came commercials, supporting roles and more auditions.

“Every opportunity and every place you go, you make sure you leave a lasting impression because you’re only as good as your last gig.”

The transition into stunt coordination happened almost by accident.

After working on productions including Mission to Rescue and the Maisha Magic drama Kina, Mugo began taking on more responsibility for action sequences and eventually coordinated one of the show’s major stunt scenes involving weapons and a wedding shootout.

By the time The Agency came calling, Mugo was a multi-skilled creative capable of contributing in several departments. He joined the production through the stunt team rather than a traditional audition process.

Produced by Hollywood star George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures for Paramount+, The Agency is among the highest-profile international productions to film in Kenya in recent years. The espionage thriller became Showtime’s most-streamed new series ever following its launch, drawing 5.1 million viewers globally during its opening weekend.

Mugo worked as a stunt double, stunt driver during military convoy scenes and also as a militia member.

He believes the opportunity was not the result of one lucky break but years of networking and preparation. More directors and filmmakers want to engage with me now, not just for stunts but for acting as well,” he says.

Working on an international production offered a glimpse into the scale and organisation that large-budget filmmaking demands.

“The difference is gigantic. One international project could be the equivalent of even five local productions. The organisation was amazing. You learn how people carry themselves on set, how departments work together and how teams manage energy without burning people out.”

For him, the experience has also reinforced the value of creative work being compensated at levels that reflect the skill and effort involved.

“It’s a good feeling getting paid how it’s supposed to be for doing something that you really like,” he says.

Exposure to international productions fundamentally changed how Mugo approaches his own work.

“Filmmaking is not easy. You may watch something that lasts one minute but the amount of manpower, preparation, resources and time that goes into creating that one minute is incredible.”

Yet despite the production’s international pedigree, Mugo rejects the notion that Kenyan talent cannot compete globally.

“We have brilliant camera operators, stunt performers and technicians. The talent exists. What needs to change is how we consume our own content and how we distribute it.”

Scenes from The Agency were filmed in Nairobi and Kisumu, creating opportunities for local actors, technicians, stunt performers and production crews to work alongside international teams. He points to a familiar frustration within Kenya’s film ecosystem – local productions often receive praise at festivals and premieres but struggle to find audiences afterwards.

At one point, Mugo almost walked away from the industry entirely. After spending close to two years in the corporate world, he realised something was missing.

“I had completely abandoned my craft,” he says. “It wasn’t bad and I learnt a lot, but it just wasn’t for me.”

The decision to leave the security of corporate life and return to acting remains one of the biggest risks he has taken: “When things go quiet in this industry, it really goes quiet. But I decided to stay with acting.’

For young Kenyan actors dreaming of international productions, his advice is remarkably simple.

“Do not get tired of rejection. Make peace with it because it will build resilience.”

That conviction traces back to a memory from his school days.

He remembers standing alone on an empty stage after a school performance, looking out into the hall and making a quiet promise to himself to pursue acting.

The next chapter, he says, is to help establish a stunt college in Kenya, create better pay structures for performers and build institutions that protect artists.

“You go to film festivals and launches, watch amazing productions and then ask yourself, where can people actually watch this? What platform is it on? Can ordinary people find it? We need more support and investment in what we are doing, and a lot of different players need to come together.”

China social media company TikTok removed 48,739 accounts suspected to belong to users under the age of 13 in the quarter to March 2026, marking a 47.98 percent drop compared to the preceding quarter’s 93,704-signalling the gains of previous purges on child users.

Children aged 13 and over are allowed to use the TikTok platform, which is highly popular with teenagers.

‘TikTok removed 48,739 accounts suspected to belong to users under the age of 13, a violation of its Community Guidelines, highlighting the platform’s commitment to protecting younger users online,’ the platform said.

The social media company disclosed that overall, it removed 884,591 videos in Kenya for violating its community guidelines.

This is a jump from the previous quarter to December, when 820,552 videos from the country were taken down, pointing to an increasing generation of content from Kenya that does not meet its safety rules and a heavy reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) moderation tools to police content.

TikTok’s Community Guidelines ban content that promotes violence, criminal activity, hate speech, harassment, or abuse. Users are not allowed to post material that encourages violence.

‘In the first quarter of 2026, TikTok removed 884,591 videos for violating its Community Guidelines in Kenya. 99.7 percent of these videos were proactively removed before anyone reported them, while 96.3 percent were taken down within 24 hours of posting,’ said TikTok.

‘These figures underscore TikTok’s continued investment in advanced detection systems and rapid response mechanisms designed to limit the spread of harmful content.’

Social media companies, including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, are turning to AI-powered content moderation to detect, flag, and remove harmful content, such as graphic violence and hate speech.

These systems utilise machine learning and natural language processing to handle vast volumes of data, reducing the burden on human teams. While AI accelerates the process, human moderators are mostly still used for final, nuanced, or borderline decisions.

‘Automated removals, including those by AI, now make up more than 96 percent of total removals,’ the social media platform said.

In Kenya, TikTok interrupted 103,847 LIVE rooms for violation of guidelines in the quarter to March 2026.

The platform recorded a proactive removal rate of 99.7 percent in Kenya in the three months to March 2026. Proactive removal means identifying and removing a video before it’s reported, which was significantly high, aided by the use of AI.

TikTok removed 96.3 percent of the harmful videos within 24 hours of posting on the platform.

‘In Quarter 1 of 2026, TikTok removed 14,261 videos under our policy for edited media and AI-generated content (AIGC),’ the firm added.

TikTok requires creators to label realistic AIGC. The site forbids content related to human trafficking, sexual exploitation, or abuse of adults or children.

While TikTok welcomes political conversations, remarks that create or pose a substantial danger of harm are removed.

Harassment, bullying, and doxing are also prohibited.

To safeguard users’ mental health, content that depicts suicide, self-harm, risky stunts, or eating disorders is prohibited.

Additionally, TikTok prohibits graphic violence, animal abuse, and explicit sexual content. It also eliminates false information, especially about elections, public health, and civic processes, and mandates that AI-generated or significantly modified media be disclosed.

BAT Kenya maintained an interim dividend of Sh10 per share as its net profit for the six months to June 2026 rose 3.1 percent to Sh3.08 billion on higher export and oral nicotine pouch sales.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed company’s gross revenue grew by 2.6 percent in the period to Sh18.9 billion, while operating costs rose 6.8 percent to Sh8.02 billion.

Finance income rose to Sh136 million from Sh97 million in the first half of 2025, while income tax expense was slightly lower at Sh1.32 billion, from Sh1.34 billion previously. BAT also collected Sh6.69 billion in excise duty and VAT on behalf of the government, down from Sh6.76 billion a year earlier.

BAT said that sales in its domestic and export markets came under pressure from rising inflation, which cut disposable income, resulting in lower cigarette sales volumes. The company added that higher fuel prices associated with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East increased its logistical and input costs.

The company kept its interim dividend for the half-year period unchanged at Sh10 per share, or Sh1 billion in total. The dividend will be paid on September 25 to shareholders on the company’s books by close of business on August 28.

‘Net revenue increased by five percent to Sh12.3 billion, driven by recovery in export sales and modern oral nicotine pouch sales following the launch in June 2025. This increase offset the impact of lower sales volumes and consumer downtrading in the domestic market,’ said BAT Kenya in a statement.

‘Cost of operations increased by seven percent, mainly driven by higher input costs together with additional expenditure to comply with graphic health warning regulations and support the company’s multi-category product portfolio.’

BAT resumed sale of its oral nicotine pouches in June 2025, after securing the necessary sales licences for the products from the government.

It had introduced the pouches in 2019 -then branded Lyft- as it sought to diversify away from combustible cigarettes. It however stopped selling them a year later after the government said they ought to be regulated as a tobacco product.

In 2024, the company sold the pouch making machinery at its Nairobi factory after lying idle for five years due to the marketing ban, saying that it would rely on imports once it got the nod to bring the pouches back to the market.

The company has also highlighted the impact of an influx of illicit cigarettes in the domestic market.

Citing unnamed third party research, BAT said that illicit cigarettes accounted for 45 percent of the domestic market by the end of 2025, up from 37 percent in 2024, ultimately denying the government Sh12 billion in tax revenue annually.

BAT attributed the surge in illicit products to the lower purchasing power of its customers, which has been forcing them to turn to lower priced alternatives to its products. The company added that although efforts have been made by relevant government agencies to address the illicit trade, enhanced enforcement measures will be required to curb this growing menace.

Jubilee Health Insurance has partnered with Singapore-headquartered insurtech bolttech to expand access to health insurance by embedding its products into digital platforms that consumers already use.

The partnership, announced on Thursday, will enable Jubilee to distribute health policies through partner platforms such as banks, petrol stations, retailers and digital marketplaces, allowing customers to buy insurance as part of everyday transactions rather than through traditional channels.

Embedded insurance integrates cover directly into the purchase of a product or service. For example, a customer taking a digital loan or buying goods on credit could add a daily hospital cash policy before completing the transaction, while online shoppers could purchase health cover with a single click.

Jubilee Health chief executive Njeri Jomo said the model reflects changing consumer behaviour as more Kenyans access financial and commercial services through digital platforms.

‘Healthcare protection should be available where people already live, work and transact. Embedding insurance into trusted platforms allows us to scale faster and extend cover to underserved communities,’ she said.

Jubilee, Kenya’s largest health insurer with a 14.08 percent market share in the first quarter of 2026, said it is already engaging telcos, petrol stations and buy-now-pay-later providers to expand distribution.

Under the partnership, bolttech will provide an API-driven platform enabling businesses to integrate Jubilee’s insurance products into their systems, supporting customer onboarding, policy administration and claims processing.

The rollout will begin with Jubilee’s Hospicash product, which provides daily cash benefits during hospitalisation, before expanding to other health insurance products.

When war escalated across the Middle East, threatening passage through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, and placing the Persian Gulf’s 21 million barrels per day of export infrastructure under genuine military threat, every energy economist reached for the 1973 and 1979 playbooks. Forecasts were grim: recession, rationing and stagflation.

For Kenya, the stakes were immediate. We import every litre of petrol, diesel and jet fuel we consume, most of it transiting the very corridors under fire.

A sustained supply shortfall exceeding three million barrels per day should have translated into pump-price shocks severe enough to destabilise transport, food prices and the shilling.

The catastrophe never arrived. Pump prices spiked, freight costs ballooned and tanker insurance premiums went parabolic but the cascading economic collapse the models predicted was, at the aggregate level, contained. The reason sits, largely unacknowledged in Western financial commentary, in Beijing.

China has spent two decades quietly building what analysts now estimate is the world’s largest strategic petroleum reserve, a government-controlled stockpile of crude oil held for emergencies.

Total strategic and commercial inventory capacity is believed to exceed 1.2 billion barrels. Beijing does not publish official volumes, but estimates from the International Energy Agency, S and P Global Commodity Insights and satellite-tracking firm Kpler triangulate around 900 to 980 million barrels at peak.

When Middle East supply risk crystallised, China did what it has done historically in moments of external price pressure: it drew down its reserve, and aggressively.

Satellite imagery of floating storage, monitored tanker movements and refinery run-rate data all pointed to Beijing substituting domestic reserve releases for spot-market purchases – buying on the open international market – at precisely the moment that market was most vulnerable to a demand surge.

By feeding its refineries from its own stockpile rather than competing for cargoes, China removed the single largest marginal buyer from a supply-constrained market. The market’s biggest customer quietly left the auction room, and everyone else – Kenya included – got to bid at lower prices than the models predicted.

The reserve drawdown alone does not explain the full buffer. The second, arguably more consequential factor is structural and permanent: Chinese oil demand has decoupled from Chinese economic growth in a way that Opec, Western majors and most emerging-market governments have been dangerously slow to internalise.

China sold more than 11 million new-energy vehicles in 2024, roughly 40 percent of all passenger cars sold locally, and by mid-2026 that share of monthly sales has held above 50 percent.

Every electric vehicle displacing a petrol car removes roughly 1.5 litres of daily fuel demand from the market. China’s high-speed rail network, at over 45,000 kilometres, exceeds the rest of the world combined and has structurally collapsed jet fuel and diesel demand on intercity corridors.

Provincial energy-intensity targets, enforced through party accountability systems, have pushed industrial users to cut consumption faster than external forecasters keep predicting. And China redirected purchasing toward discounted, sanctioned Russian crude – barrels that were never competing for the Persian Gulf molecules the rest of the world needed.

The International Energy Agency’s projection that Chinese oil demand peaks before 2030 is no longer a fringe view. It is increasingly the central case.

It matters to be honest about one thing: China did not draw down its reserve to help the global economy. It acted in service of its own price stability, industrial continuity and consumer affordability during a period of fragile domestic confidence.

That a self-interested decision made in Zhongnanhai determined whether a small business owner in Nairobi, a logistics operator in Lagos or a farming cooperative in Lusaka survived a fuel-cost spike is a remarkable illustration of how interconnected energy systems have become – and how little control import-dependent economies currently exercise over their own exposure.

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zambia all heavily dependent on imported refined products got a lucky reprieve.

The word to underline is lucky. Beijing will eventually need to replenish its reserve, and when it returns to the market as an aggressive buyer, the price impact will land hardest on nations that lack either indigenous reserves or foreign-currency buffers.

Several implications follow for leaders in oil-dependent economies. The first is that the buffer cannot be assumed next time. China’s drawdown was a one-time shock absorber, not a standing guarantee, and the next supply disruption may land very differently.

The second is the case for investing in demand-side intelligence now. The countries and companies best positioned in the next crisis will be those with real-time visibility into consumption patterns, fleet behaviour and fuel flows – through fuel management technology, fleet efficiency programmes and consumption data. Data is the new strategic reserve.

Third, the energy transition should be accelerated, at each economy’s own pace, but accelerated. The structural demand destruction China has engineered through electrification and rail is a preview of what every major economy will eventually experience. Getting ahead of that curve is a competitive advantage; being caught behind it is an existential risk.

Finally, supply chain geography needs rethinking. The Red Sea disruptions exposed the fragility of single-corridor crude and refined product flows. Diversifying supply routes, storage locations and supplier relationships is not bureaucratic prudence. It is balance-sheet protection.

The world did not suffer the oil crisis the Middle East conflict threatened to deliver. We should be honest about why and more honest still about the fact that the conditions that prevented it are changing fast.

The leaders who understand that dynamic and build their institutions accordingly, will be the ones still standing when the next crisis tests the system.

The Court of Appeal has struck out an appeal by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) challenging a High Court decision that quashed the award of a Sh362 million tender for supply and maintenance of 15 forklift trucks.

The court rejected the procurement dispute after finding the appeal was filed one day late, leaving the High Court decision intact. The court reaffirmed that statutory timelines in procurement cases cannot be extended under ordinary appellate procedures.

The court ruled that the authority and its accounting officer failed to invoke the court’s jurisdiction within the mandatory seven-day period prescribed under the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act.

The appeal arose from a procurement dispute involving Finnish cargo-handling equipment manufacturer Kalmar Finland Oy, which lost the two-lot tender to Brookwood Technical Limited and Autobikes Ltd early this year. Kalmar was disqualified for failure to file audited accounts for the years 2024 and 2025, though it challenged this, arguing the requirement did not apply to it, as an original equipment manufacturer.

Autobikes Ltd was awarded Lot 2 of the contract for $721,306 (Sh93.2 million) while Brookwood Technical Limited was to get Lot 1 at $2.8 million (Sh362 million) before the Finnish firm lodged a complaint. The tender was for the supply, testing and commissioning of 15 new forklift trucks.

Kalmar Finland Oy successfully challenged Brookwood’s award at the High Court, which quashed the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board’s finding that Brookwood was eligible to participate in the tender.

In the judgment dated May 28, 2026, the court found that Brookwood had not been prequalified to participate in that restricted tender, which had been limited to four firms, whose equipment was already in use at the port. They were identified as XYMA, Hyster, SMV Konecranes and Kalmar.

‘The applicant (Kalmar) was among those prequalified to tender; the interested party (Brookwood) was not,’ said the court. ‘The list of invited bidders is a mandatory requirement, and procuring entities have no legal discretion to waive or deviate from it, and inviting bids from firms that are not in the list would amount to the procuring entity disregarding its own bid conditions, making it illegal,’ it added.

Aggrieved by the High Court judgment, KPA moved to the court of appeal seeking to overturn that decision.

Kalmar separately asked the appellate court to strike out the appeal, arguing that the statutory deadline expired on June 4 but the appeal was lodged and paid for on June 5.

KPA opposed the application, saying it filed a notice of appeal within time and requested typed proceedings from the High Court before attempting to lodge the record of appeal on June 4.

The authority said the court’s Deputy Registrar rejected the filing later that evening because certified proceedings and the High Court judgment had not yet been supplied.

KPA told the court it explained the position the following morning, after which the Deputy Registrar approved the record for filing and payment.

The authority urged the judges not to determine the dispute on procedural grounds, arguing the appeal raised substantial issues deserving consideration.

It argued that “substantive justice, fairness, and equity demand that the appeal be determined on its merits rather than being dismissed for procedural shortcomings.”

KPA also invoked constitutional provisions requiring courts to administer justice without undue regard to procedural technicalities and argued it could not file documents that were unavailable through no fault of its own.

The judges rejected those arguments, holding that procurement appeals occupy a special legal category governed by strict statutory deadlines.

“Section 175(4) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act provides that an appeal against the decision of the High Court must be filed before the Court of Appeal within seven days,” the bench said.

The judges added that the provision forms the basis of the court’s jurisdiction and that “jurisdiction is everything.”

The court found that although KPA requested typed proceedings before expiry of the deadline, the statutory period continued running because procurement appeals are governed by special provisions overriding ordinary appellate rules.

Quoting earlier decisions, the judges reiterated that “these timelines are cast in stone and cannot be varied.”

The bench also rejected KPA’s reliance on equitable principles protecting litigants from court administrative failures.

“It, therefore, means that the appellants ought to have considered all these factors and endeavoured to file an appeal within time,” the judges said.

They added that KPA failed to demonstrate it had taken every possible step, including physically pursuing registry approval before expiry of the statutory period.