Category: Business Daily

Kenya is not yet in an election season.

The ballot is still more than a year away. Yet the signs are already visible. Convoys are growing longer, meetings are multiplying, and friendships are quietly being formed long before they will be needed. Watching this familiar choreography, I found myself asking a question every founder should ask: How many of my own relationships were built the same way-before I became useful?

Founders face elections too. Ours simply happen every day. A funding round, a major contract or an industry award often triggers the same migration. The phone rings more often. Messages arrive from people who watched you struggle in silence but now remember they always believed in you.

This is not a complaint. It is an invitation to take stock.

Every founder understands a financial balance sheet. We know our assets, liabilities and cash flow. Yet few of us prepare another balance sheet-the one no auditor ever requests. Call it the relationship balance sheet.

Relationships, like businesses, generate value or impose costs. Some compound your life. Others quietly drain your energy, judgment and peace. A founder can appear surrounded by people while slowly going bankrupt in the relationships that matter most.

There are really two relationship balance sheets.

The first is built on convenience. It includes investors, customers, suppliers, partners, board members and the media. These relationships are essential because they open markets, unlock capital and create opportunity.

But they are transactional by design. An investor who walks away when the numbers deteriorate has not betrayed you; they have simply honoured the agreement. The mistake is expecting loyalty from a relationship that was never designed to provide it.

Many founders also know that convenience is not always optional. In environments where opportunities depend on proximity, some relationships are maintained because they are necessary. You learn to navigate gatekeepers and networks because survival demands it.

That is not hypocrisy. It is reality. Yet after enough seasons, every founder eventually confronts a difficult question: Am I building relationships to grow my business, or am I beginning to organise my life around people whose value is purely transactional?

The second balance sheet is built on covenant.

These are the people who remain after the headlines disappear.

The mentor who expects nothing in return. The sibling who never asks what the company is worth. The spouse who values your presence more than your success. The friend who visits after the business fails rather than after it succeeds. These relationships rarely produce financial returns, but they produce something even more valuable-resilience.

Every founder needs both balance sheets. Problems arise when we mistake one for the other.

Occasionally, however, the two overlap. A business relationship deepens into genuine friendship.

A professional adviser becomes a trusted confidant. A long-standing client begins to care about your wellbeing beyond the contract.

These relationships cannot be manufactured, but they can be nurtured. They remind us that not every professional relationship must remain transactional.

That possibility carries an important challenge. Covenant is not only discovered; it is also built. Some relationships simply require one honest conversation to move beyond business.

The investor you only call about financial results. The business partner whose personal story you have never taken time to understand. Not every relationship will evolve, nor should it. But ecosystems built entirely on transactions eventually produce transactional societies.

Relationships also change with seasons. In the discovery stage, founders need people who challenge their thinking more than those who applaud their ambition.

During the building stage, ideas become responsibilities and relationships require greater intentionality. As businesses scale, the question shifts from what you can build to what can survive without you. Eventually, stewardship replaces creation, and legacy becomes measured by what continues after your daily involvement ends.

These seasons are rarely linear. A founder can build, fail, reinvent and begin again. What determines how quickly they recover is often not financial capital but relational capital.

That is why founders should deliberately build relationship infrastructure. Just as businesses depend on roads, electricity and communications, entrepreneurs depend on people who perform different roles.

We need truth tellers who challenge our blind spots, calming voices who steady us during crises, fellow builders who understand the weight of payroll, experienced mentors who think in decades rather than quarters, and families who remind us that our identity existed long before our companies did.

The financial balance sheet may reset after a business failure. The relationship balance sheet is what determines how quickly you rebuild.

As the first half of the year closes, perhaps this deserves a quieter audit than our financial statements.

Who only appears when I become useful? Who still tells me uncomfortable truths? Who would answer my call if the company disappeared tomorrow? Which relationships are assets, and which have quietly become liabilities?

Companies fail when they run out of capital. Founders fail when they run out of relational capital. One appears on the balance sheet. The other determines who remains when there is nothing left to gain.

There is a familiar pattern to conversations about climate adaptation in Africa. They usually begin with the billions of dollars needed to help the continent respond to increasingly frequent droughts, floods and other climate-related shocks. Before long, attention shifts to the widening financing gap and the urgent need for more public and private investment.

These are necessary discussions. Yet after participating in the Adaptation Investment Summit for Africa (AISA) 2026, I found myself asking a different question: What exactly are we asking capital to invest in?

For years, climate adaptation has largely been framed as a financing challenge. But investors rarely allocate capital simply because a problem is urgent.

They invest where opportunities are commercially viable, risks are understood and investments can generate sustainable returns.

If Africa is to attract significantly more private capital into adaptation, then adaptation itself must increasingly be presented as an investment opportunity rather than simply a funding need.

That perspective shaped many of the conversations at AISA 2026. A climate-resilient transport corridor is more than a road built to withstand floods. It is an economic asset that lowers transport costs, connects producers to markets and strengthens regional trade.

A climate-smart warehouse does more than protect agricultural produce; it reduces post-harvest losses, improves productivity and increases the value of agricultural supply chains.

Modern irrigation systems, cold chains and digital trade platforms help communities adapt to climate change while creating commercial value, generating revenue and supporting jobs.

One discussion challenged participants to view trade itself as a climate adaptation strategy. When farmers can sell to regional markets instead of relying on a single drought-affected market, they become less vulnerable to local shocks.

Efficient border systems that keep perishable goods moving protect incomes and strengthen food security. Resilient transport networks ensure that food, inputs and businesses continue moving during disruption. In this sense, trade is not simply about moving goods across borders; it is about helping people and economies adapt.

The summit also reinforced another lesson. Climate-resilient trade corridors are not built through infrastructure alone. Roads and border posts must be supported by finance that enables businesses to grow, technology that improves efficiency, policies that reduce barriers to trade and institutions that give investors confidence. Investors ultimately back systems, not isolated projects.

Africa will continue to need substantial public and development finance to respond to climate change.

But if adaptation is to move beyond pilot projects and reach the scale the continent requires, equal attention must be given to building investment-ready markets. After all, capital does not flow simply towards need. It flows towards opportunity.

In the early 2000s, the Oakland Athletics transformed one of baseball’s smallest budgets into sustained success through the now-famous “Moneyball” strategy.

Rather than chasing more resources, the club focused on using what it already had more efficiently through data, measurement and disciplined decision-making.

That lesson extends well beyond sport. Often, the greatest gains come not from acquiring more assets, but from making existing systems work better. It is a lesson Kenya could apply as it pursues faster economic growth.

Economic discussions often revolve around attracting more investment, building new infrastructure or increasing public spending.

While these remain important, Kenya already possesses many of the ingredients needed for growth: a strategic location, a sophisticated financial sector, strong digital infrastructure and an entrepreneurial population. The bigger opportunity may lie in improving the efficiency of the systems that support investment.

Singapore provides a compelling example. Despite limited natural resources, it built prosperity through efficient institutions, well-integrated infrastructure and disciplined execution. Housing projects were linked to transport, utilities, finance and commercial centres, creating not only homes but also an engine for investment, productivity and job creation.

Kenya’s Affordable Housing Programme offers similar potential. But its success depends not only on construction, but also on the efficiency of the processes that support investment.

Land registration, development approvals, valuations and charge registration all determine how quickly capital moves through the economy.

Even small administrative delays can have significant consequences. I recently observed a lease transaction worth about Sh100 million delayed for months because of an incorrect entry on Ardhisasa.

The error was relatively simple to fix, yet the absence of a fast resolution mechanism delayed investment and postponed about Sh3 million in government revenue from stamp duty and registration fees. The delay also affected related transactions tied to the same development.

This illustrates a broader point. Every delay in approvals, permits or registrations keeps capital idle, slows business expansion and postpones job creation.

Kenya’s next economic breakthrough may therefore come less from finding new resources than from improving execution.

By measuring performance, removing bottlenecks and strengthening coordination across government, the country can unlock significant economic value. Like Moneyball, success may depend not on having more resources, but on using existing ones far more effectively.

The findings emerged from a tax dispute that started after KRA conducted a physical stock verification at Almasi Bottlers’ Nyeri and Eldoret plants in March 2025 before issuing an additional excise duty assessment.

The beverage manufacturer challenged the decision after KRA confirmed the assessment through an objection decision issued in August 2025.

Almasi, an affiliate of the Coca-Cola group, argued that KRA wrongly relied on inflation-adjusted excise duty rates introduced through Legal Notice No. 217 of 2021 despite High Court conservatory orders preserving the previous rates during ongoing litigation.

The company also disputed KRA’s reliance on records relating to accidental breakages and DEFCO sales dating back to 2018 and 2019, arguing those periods had become statute-barred.

The tribunal rejected Almasi’s challenge to the excise rates, finding KRA lawfully applied the revised rates after the High Court lifted the conservatory orders on August 26, 2024.

“It is thus clear that the said assessment was issued after the orders of stay had been lifted. Accordingly, the Respondent did not disregard or disobey the stay orders,’ the tribunal said.

However, the judges agreed that KRA exceeded its statutory powers by relying on records older than five years without alleging fraud or deliberate tax evasion.

“The law is thus clear that assessment can only go back five years, and a taxpayer is also only required to keep records for a period of five years,” the tribunal said.

It added, ‘Any assessments or records demanded for the years 2018 and 2019 related to adjustments and sales were unlawful and statute-barred unless fraud, wilful neglect, or tax evasion was pleaded and proved.’

The tribunal found none of those grounds had been pleaded or established. It therefore ordered KRA to set aside assessments dependent on records predating March 2020, uphold assessments covering March 2020 to April 2025, and issue a fresh objection decision within 30 days.

The case stemmed from a stock variance identified during KRA’s audit, after Almasi manually adjusted production volumes in its excise returns to offset higher inflation-adjusted rates already configured in the iTax system, while the court challenge remained pending.

The company argued it had acted to ensure the correct duty remained payable while the conservatory orders remained in force.

KRA countered that the manual adjustments created a discrepancy of more than 3.9 million litres between declared stock and physical inventories, justifying the additional assessment.

Before the hearing, both sides settled part of the dispute through alternative dispute resolution, leaving only the Sh25 million assessment arising from the inflation-related stock variance to be determined.

The tribunal also faulted Almasi for failing to place key supporting documents before KRA during the objection stage, saying taxpayers cannot rely on evidence first introduced during an appeal.

“The appellant has engaged in mere assertions in this appeal without providing evidence,” the tribunal said, adding that, “a mere statement in pleadings is not evidence.”

If you walk through almost any market in Kenya on a weekday morning, you will see who is feeding this country. Women arranging dry beans and maize before sunrise, loading sukuma wiki onto handcarts, and haggling over tomato prices with traders. They are not a footnote to Kenya’s agricultural economy.

They are, for the most part, the agricultural economy. And they have systematically been underserved by the very systems meant to support them.

Kenya is a signatory to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, known as CAADP, which is the African Union’s framework for agricultural investment and growth. Under the programme, Kenya has committed to achieving six percent annual agricultural growth.

World Bank data shows the sector has averaged three to four percent in most years, reaching six percent only when the rains arrive on time.

That gap is not simply a matter of weather or funding. It points to something more specific: a significant share of Kenya’s farming capacity is not producing at the optimal level due to myriad reasons.

The 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey found that 75 percent of women in Kenya own no agricultural land, whether solely or jointly, and only three percent hold an individual title deed. In 2014 the equivalent figure was 61 percent. By 2022 it had risen to 75 percent. That is not progress.

The National Land Commission made women’s land rights a centerpiece of its 2024 strategic direction, a signal that the issue has institutional attention at the highest level.

In most instances, land is the collateral that determines whether a bank will talk to you or not. Without it, a farmer makes decisions shaped more by what she cannot afford to lose than by what she might be able to produce, and that difference shows up in her yields, in how much seed she buys, and in whether she plants for the market or just to get through to the next harvest.

Agriculture is not a small part of Kenya’s economy. It contributes 21.3 percent of GDP directly, closer to 30 percent when you count the industries that depend on it, and it employs roughly 32 percent of the workforce according to the World Bank and KNBS, 2023.

And yet Kenya spent close to Sh80.2 billion importing food in the first quarter of 2023 alone, nearly matching what it earned from food exports in the same period (KNBS).

The FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture 2010-11 put a number to what that something is: if women farmers had equal access to productive resources, yields on their farms could rise by 20 to 30 percent, with total agricultural output across developing countries lifting by 2.5 to four percent.

The question is why that potential has not translated into output, and the answer is not simply a lack of investment. The government committed roughly Sh54.3 billion to the National Fertiliser Subsidy Programme in 2022-23 alone, specifically to get affordable inputs to smallholders.

A 2024 Tegemeo Institute evaluation found that 46 percent of eligible households registered for the programme, but only 19 to 21 percent actually received the input, well below the government’s own 40 percent coverage target.

The gap between signing up and collecting was widest among farmers on small untitled plots. This is not an argument against the programme. It is an argument for designing its next phase with that gap in view. The intent was right; the resources were committed; what remains is ensuring that target farmers are reached.

Across credit, extension services and climate adaptation, the farmers least likely to be reached in Kenya are small scale farmers, and women specifically. When drought arrives or a season fails, adapting means buying better seed, investing in water harvesting, or accessing insurance before the loss becomes unrecoverable.

In Kenya, Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy sets out clear goals.

The work being done by development organisations, State agencies and farmer groups across is real and it is building something worth building on.

The next step is making sure that momentum reaches farmers who have so far been hardest to reach, not through a separate programme for women, but by treating equitable reach as a design requirement in every investment that touches smallholder agriculture, whether that is a credit facility, a land documentation drive, or an extension service measuring yield change rather than workshop attendance.

Coca-Cola Beverages Ltd is facing resistance from workers after spouses of unionised employees were removed from the company’s medical scheme for failing to produce marriage certificates.

The dispute has sparked questions over whether proof of marriage should be required before extending workplace benefits, and whether consultation with unions is mandatory before such changes take effect.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has declined to order Coca-Cola to immediately restore the medical insurance. The court ruled that granting the order would effectively determine the ongoing dispute before a full trial, where key questions over the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), consultation and proof of marriage remain unresolved.

At the centre of the lawsuit filed by the Kenya Union of Commercial, Food and Allied Workers is whether employers require marriage certificates before extending workplace medical benefits to employees’ spouses.

Grant principal relief

The court said the union’s request could not be granted because it was asking for the same outcome that will only be decided after the full case is heard.

‘The court is equally mindful that the order sought would effectively grant the principal relief pleaded in the main claim. The court is not persuaded that the applicant has established exceptional circumstances,’ said the court.

The judge said key questions were still unresolved and would need witnesses and interpretation of the CBA, past practice, and the Marriage Act before a final decision could be made.

In the case filed in February 2026, the union says the company breached the CBA by introducing a policy requiring marriage certificates without consultation and removing spouses from the medical scheme.

It argues employees had long nominated spouses using alternative records including next-of-kin information and biodata recognised by the Social Health Authority (SHA) before the change.

But the company removed from its medical scheme all spouses of employees who had not produced marriage certificates.

The union says the firm initially agreed to suspend implementation and consider alternative evidence but later removed affected spouses in April 2025.

‘The abrupt introduction of the marriage certificate requirement was implemented without considering the adverse medical and welfare consequences for affected spouses,’ says the union.

It claims that Coca Cola breached the CBA by failing to consult the union, denying employee participation, and collaborating with the medical insurer to remove numerous spouses from the company medical scheme.

Voluntary benefit

However, Coca-Cola says spousal cover is a voluntary benefit under company policy rather than a contractual entitlement under the CBA.

It says the insurer introduced the marriage certificate requirement for compliance with the Marriage Act and to prevent abuse of the scheme.

The company said it negotiated a one-year grace period during 2024 and later extended the deadline while helping employees obtain certificates.

According to the response, more than 100 employees complied, and their spouses retained medical cover before implementation began.

The company rejected a conciliator’s recommendation to accept sworn affidavits instead of marriage certificates, maintaining they were not legally sufficient.

‘Marriage certificates are the only legally recognised conclusive proof of marriage under the Marriage Act,’ says the company.

Ruling on the union’s application, the court noted workers were notified in January 2024, attended sensitisation meetings, received reminders and were offered assistance obtaining certificates before suspensions took effect.

It also observed that the prejudice facing employees and their spouses, though significant, had to be balanced against compelling the employer to provide insurance contrary to insurer eligibility conditions before trial.

The dispute is expected to determine whether spousal medical cover forms part of negotiated employment terms or remains a discretionary workplace benefit, and whether consultation was mandatory before the policy changed.

The case is scheduled for mention on November 18, 2026.

The Ministry of Health’s decision to halt unregulated parallel importation of medicines and health technologies marks an important step in strengthening Kenya’s pharmaceutical regulatory system.

More than a policy shift, it is a reaffirmation that improving access to medicines should never come at the expense of patient safety, quality or public confidence.

Parallel importation has long divided opinion. Supporters argue it can improve access and lower costs by allowing medicines to be sourced from alternative markets.

Critics, however, caution that medicines are not ordinary consumer goods.

They require strict oversight of manufacturing, storage, transportation, labelling, traceability and post-market surveillance. A cheaper medicine that cannot be verified, traced or monitored may ultimately impose far greater costs on patients and the healthcare system.

The real issue, therefore, is not whether parallel importation should exist, but whether it can operate within a robust regulatory framework. Every product entering the Kenyan market should be authorised, quality-assured, traceable and compliant with local regulatory requirements. Affordability should never be pursued independently of safety, quality and efficacy.

Weak oversight creates opportunities for substandard or falsified medicines to enter legitimate supply chains, undermining public trust and fragmenting accountability. This makes strong regulation indispensable.

Kenya has made significant progress in strengthening pharmaceutical oversight, including the Pharmacy and Poisons Board’s pursuit of the World Health Organization’s Maturity Level 3 benchmark.

The planned rollout of medicine serialisation and track-and-trace systems will further enhance transparency by enabling regulators to monitor products throughout the supply chain and respond quickly to quality or safety concerns.

The next challenge is implementation. Regulators, manufacturers, importers, distributors and healthcare professionals must consistently apply the 2019 parallel importation framework.

Greater transparency is equally important. The public should be able to identify which products have been authorised for parallel importation, who is responsible for them and how compliance will be monitored.

Ultimately, the success of the policy will not be measured by the volume of medicines imported or the prices achieved. It will be judged by whether Kenyan patients receive safe, effective and quality-assured medicines through a regulatory system they can trust.

As efforts to strengthen supervision of digital lending continue, it is imperative to reflect on the next phase of financial inclusion. In the past year, mobile lenders disbursed over Sh133 billion in microloans to more than 7.5 million borrowers.

Yet default rates on advances under Sh1,000 exceeded 80 percent, with one in six people falling into complete default.

While instant credit has undeniably expanded financial inclusion, questions remain about whether current safeguards adequately protect borrowers from over-indebtedness.

Digital lending was designed to support small businesses and bridge irregular income streams.

Instead, a significant portion is being directed towards everyday household expenses and non-essential spending, with emerging data also pointing to some use for betting.

When borrowers take loans to cover daily needs and non-essential spending without sufficient income to repay, they risk defaulting. In reality, the challenge is not the availability of financial products, but a gap between what the market provides and what households require for sustainable financial health.

It’s been argued that the current system has placed greater emphasis on speed of disbursement than on ensuring borrowers are positioned to repay without hardship.

For many borrowers, the difficulty is not the first loan, but what comes after.

When a single income gap stretches across multiple repayment deadlines, borrowers often turn to a second lender to clear the first. Then a third. What begins as a small, manageable advance can quietly become a web of overlapping obligations.

The structure of these products may have also deepened the challenge.

Short repayment windows, sometimes just days or weeks, leave little room for income fluctuations. When deadlines are missed, penalties and rollover fees accumulate rapidly. For loans taken to cover essentials such as food or rent, there is rarely a surplus from which to repay.

The effects ripple outward. Blacklisting at credit reference bureaus, sometimes for modest sums, can restrict access to formal credit for years, closing doors at the moment households most need them open.

With reform taking hold, digital lenders have been brought under formal licensing requirements, creating a clearer framework for responsible conduct. New rules around data protection, disclosure, and debt collection practices are also taking shape.

This is a welcome step toward restoring trust and ensuring that innovation does not outpace safeguards. To further ensure products support borrowers’ long-term financial well-being, several paths are getting attention.

Borrowers are getting financial guidance so they can compare products and understand true costs, along with clarity on how their personal data is used, stored, and shared.

So, where do we go from here? Starting early makes it much easier to build financial security. The sooner people begin saving, the more time their money has to grow.

We should also prioritise designing savings products to help individuals build a cushion before they need to borrow, using simple features such as automatic savings, emergency savings accounts, and small, regular contributions that buffer against unexpected expenses.

Financial literacy must go hand in hand with product access. People need practical knowledge on budgeting, saving consistently, managing debt, distinguishing essential from non-essential spending, and planning for future needs so as to get the most value from the financial solutions available to them.

Credit design must accommodate irregular income patterns through longer tenures and grace periods for income shocks.

If household savings do not become automatic, accessible, and culturally normal, debt will continue to devour the capital, investments, and opportunities that generations have laboured to create.

We have proven we can innovate. The question is whether we will now apply that ingenuity to helping ordinary families keep what they earn.

Employment disputes are an increasingly significant source of legal and financial risk for employers.

Claims arising from unfair termination, breaches of fair labour practices, contract violations or failure to comply with statutory obligations can expose businesses to costly compensation awards, legal fees, reputational damage and operational disruption.

This raises an important question: can employers insure themselves against employment-related claims?

The answer is generally yes, although the extent of cover depends on the nature of the claim, public policy considerations and the insurer’s assessment of risk.

Insurance allows businesses to transfer uncertain financial risks to an insurer in exchange for a premium. This principle applies to employment-related liabilities in much the same way it applies to property damage or professional negligence.

In many jurisdictions, specialised Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) policies cover claims involving wrongful dismissal, discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation and other workplace disputes.

However, insurance has clear legal limits. Courts and regulators generally do not permit insurance arrangements that shield employers from the consequences of deliberate or unlawful conduct. As a result, employment liability policies usually distinguish between inadvertent mistakes and intentional wrongdoing.

Most policies cover legal defence costs and compensation arising from negligent or unintentional breaches of employment obligations but exclude deliberate, fraudulent or criminal conduct. This ensures insurance remains a legitimate risk management tool rather than a means of avoiding legal accountability.

Employment liability insurance offers several commercial benefits. It provides financial protection against legal costs, which often account for a substantial portion of employment disputes. Even claims that ultimately fail can be expensive to defend.

Insurance also gives employers greater financial certainty by helping them manage potentially significant and unpredictable liabilities.

In addition, insurers often require policyholders to implement sound human resource policies, grievance procedures and compliance systems, encouraging better workplace governance and reducing the likelihood of disputes.

The cover is particularly valuable for organisations with large workforces, high staff turnover or operations across multiple locations, where employment-related claims are more likely to arise.

Even so, insurance is not a substitute for good employment practices. It cannot repair reputational damage, restore employee trust or reverse the impact of workplace misconduct. Many liabilities-including statutory penalties, criminal sanctions and losses arising from deliberate breaches of the law-remain uninsurable.

For employers operating in an increasingly complex regulatory environment, employment liability insurance should be viewed as one element of a broader risk management strategy.

Combined with sound human resource management, legal compliance and effective workplace governance, it can help cushion the financial impact of disputes. Ultimately, however, prevention remains far less costly than litigation.

The long-stalled multi-billion shillings Keben dam project in Nandi County, which was abandoned during former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s era, will be revived by a Chinese contractor at nearly triple the initial cost after the government expanded its design and water treatment capacity.

Procurement records show that SINOHYDRO Corporation Limited has won the contract to construct Keben Dam Water Supply Project, breathing life into a scheme that was shelved in 2019 following the fallout between former President Kenyatta and his then deputy, William Ruto.

The project will involve construction of a 43-metre-high earth-filled dam and a water treatment plant with a daily production capacity of 26,715 cubic metres, supplying drinking water to Nandi Town and surrounding urban and peri-urban centres.

“The project will primarily benefit the residents of Chesumei, Nandi Central, Nandi East and Nandi South sub-counties, with a particular focus on urban and peri-urban areas,” Lake Victoria North Water Works Development Agency said in a disclosure.

The revival marks a dramatic transformation of a project first unveiled in May 2017.

At the time, the government estimated the cost at $56.1 million-equivalent to about Sh5.8 billion at the prevailing exchange rate-for the construction of a relatively modest 12-metre-high concrete dam and a water treatment plant capable of producing 8,000 cubic metres of drinking water a day.

Under the newly awarded contract, however, the scheme has evolved into a much larger undertaking.

The dam has been redesigned into a 43-metre-high earth-filled structure-more than three times the original height-while the treatment plant’s daily capacity has increased to 26,715 cubic metres, also more than tripling the initial output.

The expanded scope has pushed the contract value to Sh23.6 billion, nearly three times the last publicly disclosed estimate of Sh7.8 billion, reflecting the substantially larger storage infrastructure and treatment capacity rather than inflation alone.

The project will be implemented under the Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Financing (EPC-F) model, under which the contractor will finance, design, build, operate and maintain the dam before selling treated bulk water to the government.

In return, the State will provide land, secure statutory approvals, guarantee bulk water purchases through “take-or-pay” commitments and offer agreed government support measures, including viability-gap funding where necessary.

The arrangement is anchored on a Water Purchase Agreement that allocates risks between the government and the private investor, while making the project bankable. The model is designed to reduce the immediate financing burden on taxpayers while allowing investors to recover their capital over the project’s operational life.

Ironically, it was this financing model that thrust Keben into the national spotlight.

It was among 24 dam projects suspended by Parliament in 2019 at the height of the Arror and Kimwarer scandal after lawmakers questioned the EPCF model, describing it as a potential conduit for inflated costs and poor value for taxpayers.

The National Assembly Committee on Environment and Natural Resources halted the Sh188 billion programme and called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate how the projects had been procured and whether due diligence had been undertaken.

MPs also raised concerns delayed land compensation, arguing that contractors were receiving substantial advance payments while affected communities were yet to be compensated. The then committee chairman Kareke Mbiuki described the EPCF model as “a complete rip-off”, saying it exposed Kenya to expensive borrowing without adequate safeguards.

Keben was suspended alongside several other flagship water projects, including Mwache, Lessos, Soin-Koru, Maragua IV, Bute, Bosto, Gatei and Isiolo, as scrutiny intensified over the procurement of the controversial Arror and Kimwarer dams.

The suspension coincided with the deterioration of relations between President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto. The project continued to gather dust on the shelves until Ruto became President.

Soon after President Ruto assumed office in September 2022, leaders from Nandi County mounted a fresh campaign to revive the project, arguing that residents had been unfairly denied a transformative investment because of politics.

Governor Stephen Sang, together with Members of Parliament from the county, urged the new administration to resurrect the dam, saying it would address chronic water shortages, support irrigation, supply tea-growing zones and improve access to clean water for more than 300,000 households in Nandi Hills, Kapsabet and neighbouring towns.

They accused the previous administration of freezing the project during the Jubilee political fallout and appealed to President Ruto to complete projects that had stalled in his political backyard.