Category: Business Daily

Ask any preschool teacher and they’ll tell you that their classroom is a vibrant environment, filled with the sounds of giggles, games, music, clattering feet and the occasional tears. Is it overwhelming? Yes, sometimes.

But this bustle of play-based activity is an essential ingredient in childhood learning.

Giving children a strong startThe first few years of a child’s life are critical because this is when the brain develops at its fastest rate and when children are most receptive to learning.

Numerous studies, including the OECD’s International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study, have highlighted the importance of giving children a strong start in the early years to improve their educational outcomes and overall wellbeing later in life.

Research also shows that certain characteristics increase the impact of early years provision. One of these is play-based learning, as identified by the International Education group at Cambridge University Press and Assessment.

Why is play so important?

Play is generally seen as something to enjoy, but it also helps children make significant progress across all areas of development. It promotes executive function – the mental skills that help us manage everyday tasks – encouraging positive learning behaviours such as focus, self-regulation and resilience.

Play-based learning also supports cognitive and physical development by allowing children to build their working memory and make connections through active participation.

High-quality early years education embraces a mix of engaging activities designed to teach valuable skills and behaviours.

A teacher reading a story aloud develops children’s listening skills while building their understanding and appreciation of spoken language. Simple counting and number games develop mathematical literacy.

Role-play activities, such as dressing up, encourage sharing and empathy, while a pretend shop gives children the opportunity to develop their social and communication skills and learn about money.

Teachers make all the difference

Play-based learning truly comes alive when children are free to explore, try new things and follow their own interests. However, this freedom is not without structure. The most effective teachers are like friendly coaches on the sidelines.

They join in, nudge ideas along and spark new ways of thinking, stepping in at just the right moment to offer guidance or cheer children on.

This kind of encouragement creates a nurturing environment where children strengthen their problem-solving skills and self-control – all important steps in their educational journey.

To get the best from playful learning, skilled teachers allow children to explore a variety of activities while working towards the same learning goal.

By carefully observing children’s interests and behaviours during play, teachers can create environments full of excitement and possibility.

They also ensure that every activity is appropriate for the individual child, recognising that development does not always occur at the same pace.

Early childhood education critical building block for future success

The belief that “formal learning starts later” continues to shape early childhood development practices across Sub-Saharan Africa. However, awareness of Early Childhood Education (ECE) is increasing, with governments recognising its fundamental role in children’s development.

Despite this growing awareness, compulsory schooling continues to receive the lion’s share of funding and policy attention, while much early childhood education still takes place in unregistered and unregulated settings.

Expanding access to formal Early Years programmes, supported by structured quality standards and a consistent framework that can be adapted locally, should remain a priority for governments across the continent.

Collaboration will help embed early learning across communities

Some of the major challenges facing early years education in Africa include limited funding, a shortage of trained early years teachers, uneven infrastructure, and disparities between urban and rural areas.

To implement effective ECE programmes across Africa, governments, the private sector and development partners must work collaboratively.

Kenya Reinsurance Corporation (Kenya Re) has lined up Sh1.5 billion to fund a regional and international expansion plan targeting Tanzania, Rwanda and India as it seeks to restore growth after retreating from loss-making business lines.

The State-owned re-insurer told shareholders during the recent annual general meeting that the investment will support setting up of a subsidiary in Tanzania, a branch office in India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec (Gift) City and a liaison office in Rwanda.

The move comes after Kenya Re reported a drop in total insurance revenue to Sh17.07 billion in 2025 from Sh18.84 billion in 2024, a decline attributed to a strategic decision to exit unprofitable business, particularly in agriculture and parts of its India portfolio.

‘This was a conscious profitability-over-volume decision. While it reduced top-line revenue, it led to significantly improved underwriting results. To reverse the trend and restore growth, the corporation is pursuing regional expansion and focusing on profitable classes of business,’ Kenya Re said in disclosures following the meeting.

The re-insurer is also making a renewed push into key markets across Africa and Asia as part of the efforts to stem the recent back-to-back decline in profits.

Kenya Re’s net profit peaked at Sh4.97 billion in 2023 before dropping for two straight years to Sh3.92 billion at the end of December 2025.

Last year’s decline in net profit from Sh4.44 billion in 2024 came on the back of insurance revenue retreating to Sh17.07 billion from Sh18.84 billion posted in the previous year. Kenya Re linked the decline in revenue to a ‘deliberate strategic withdrawal’ from loss-making business lines.

The bulk of the planned Sh1.5 billion capital outlay will primarily support entry into Tanzania, where regulations require reinsurers to have a physical presence to underwrite local business.

The reinsurer currently has subsidiaries in Uganda, Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire. In the year ended December 2025, it more than doubled its investment in Zambia to Sh498.5 million from Sh214.9 million a year earlier.

The fresh investment in Zambia was to recapitalise the unit in line with the market’s Insurance (General) Regulations, 2022 that requires insurers and reinsurers to maintain a capital adequacy ratio of at least 150 percent. The regulations gave underwriters a three-year grace period of up to December 2025 comply.

Kenya Re’s investments in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda, valued at Sh1.96 billion and Sh584.2 million respectively at the end of December 2025, remained unchanged from 2024. Total investment in subsidiaries rose to Sh3.05 billion in 2025 from Sh2.76 billion in 2024.

The Cote d`Ivoire unit started operating in 2015, followed by the Zambian branch in 2016 while the Uganda subsidiary started operations in January 2023.

Kenya Re is already advancing the planned entry into Tanzania, having opened the recruitment for a chief executive officer and chief financial officer to be based in Dar es Salaam.

The Tanzania unit is expected to help the reinsurer reclaim the market share it lost after the country introduced rules barring foreign reinsurers without local operations.

In India, Kenya Re is setting up a branch in the Gift City, which is a special economic zone that offers tax incentives and allows firms to transact in foreign currency. The branch will focus on property, engineering and marine lines, which Kenya Re considers more profitable.

The India return marks another strategic shift after Kenya Re exited the market in 2023 following underwriting losses in agricultural reinsurance. The reinsurer now plans a more selective approach, targeting break-even within three years.

President William Ruto’s recent meeting with leaders of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) was more than a diplomatic engagement with the global music community. It signals Kenya’s intention to reposition the creative economy as a pillar of development.

As countries search for new sources of economic growth, collaboration with the leading recording industry organisation presents Kenya an opportunity to transform creativity into a high-value asset.

Globally, the creative economy has evolved into a key contributor to growth, jobs, exports and innovation. Music is no longer viewed merely as entertainment. It is a complex industry that generates income through streaming platforms, licensing, live performances and publishing, merchandising and intellectual property rights.

Countries with strong creative ecosystems have demonstrated that investment in talent and copyright protection can produce significant economic returns while enhancing national competitiveness.

The partnership with IFPI has the potential to unlock substantial gains across the creative value chain. Kenya has a vibrant pool of musicians, producers, composers and digital creators whose commercial potential is underutilised.

The collaboration with IFPI offers an opportunity to address the structural constraints by strengthening copyright administration, improving royalty collection and connecting artists to global distribution networks.

The partnership also sends a strong signal to domestic and international investors that Kenya is committed to developing a predictable and commercially viable creative economy.

Investor confidence is often driven by policy certainty, regulatory efficiency and market transparency.

By working with globally recognised industry agencies like IFPI, Kenya enhances its credibility as an investment destination, attracting capital for music production, digital platforms, entertainment infrastructure and creative enterprise development.

A more formalised music industry expands the national tax base. Increased revenues generated by artists, recording companies, digital platforms, event organisers and supporting businesses translate into higher collections of tax.

The economic spillover effects are equally significant. A thriving music industry stimulates demand for recording studios, event management companies, digital marketing agencies and audio-visual production, legal services and hospitality, tourism and technology providers. This multiplier effect creates thousands of jobs and encourages entrepreneurship.

Every successful musician represents an ecosystem of producers, sound engineers, graphic designers, videographers, software developers and business managers.

The collaboration strengthens Kenya’s position within the digital economy.

As global music consumption shifts towards streaming, countries with strong digital infrastructure and effective intellectual property governance are attracting greater investment from global record labels and technology firms.

By aligning its regulatory framework with international best practices, Kenya can position itself as East Africa’s preferred destination for music production, digital content creation and creative investment.

Strong copyright protection encourages innovation by ensuring creators get fair compensation for their work. This improves household incomes for artists and investor confidence in the sector. Financial institutions become more willing to fund creative enterprises when intellectual property rights are enforceable and royalty income becomes predictable.

President Ruto’s engagement with IFPI should be viewed as an investment in Kenya’s productive capacity rather than a ceremonial meeting. The creative economy offers a pathway to economic diversification, youth employment, export growth and increased domestic revenue generation.

With supportive policies, modern copyright systems and sustained collaboration between the government and global industry partners, Kenya can transform its creative talent into a globally competitive economic sector.

Such a plan will elevate Kenyan music on the global stage and reinforce the country’s long-term vision of building an innovative, knowledge-driven and inclusive economy.

The Central Bank Rate (CBR) and a new benchmark rate for pricing loans have converged at 8.75 percent, creating a single industry stand for assessing the cost of credit.

The Kenya Shilling Overnight Interbank Average (Kesonia), which is the overnight lending rate among banks that was launched in December, has settled at an average of 8.75 percent in recent weeks to match the CBR, resulting in a uniform loans reference rate.

The convergence of the two rates implies that the banking industry now has a single reference rate for loans, making it easy for customers to compare loan prices between various lenders applying different metrics.

The Central Bank Rate (CBR) and a new benchmark rate for pricing loans have converged at 8.75 percent, creating a single industry stand for assessing the cost of credit.

The Kenya Shilling Overnight Interbank Average (Kesonia), which is the overnight lending rate among banks that was launched in December, has settled at an average of 8.75 percent in recent weeks to match the CBR, resulting in a uniform loans reference rate.

The convergence of the two rates implies that the banking industry now has a single reference rate for loans, making it easy for customers to compare loan prices between various lenders applying different metrics.

The final revised risk-based credit pricing model was anchored on Kesonia which was designed to increase transparency and lower credit costs.

Banks were, however, allowed to deploy the CBR benchmark as a backup option.

The preference for CBR over Kesonia was attributed to the shortened window given to banks transitioning to the revised risk-based pricing by CBK.

Almost all tier-one banks have adopted the CBR as their benchmark rate for loan pricing including Equity, KCB, Absa Bank Kenya, Standard Chartered, NCBA and DTB.

The Cooperative Bank of Kenya was an outlier, opting for Kesonia as its benchmark alongside Habib Bank AG Zurich and ABC Bank.

Two banks, Citibank N.A. Kenya and Stanbic Bank Kenya, adopted both CBR and Kesonia.

Previously, each commercial bank had its own approved benchmark from which to price loans, but the model ran into chaos by creating 37 different reference rates.

The divergence in rates was seen to impede cheaper borrowing costs for customers.

Kesonia can only rise by 0.5 percentage points above the prevailing CBR rate and must not fall below the benchmark by more than 0.5 percentage points.

The corridor implies that Kesonia and CBR would only differ slightly.

The convergence of the rate increases the efficiency of monetary policy decisions by CBK, allowing banks to quickly translate movements in the apex bank’s benchmark to loan pricing.

‘Essentially, an alignment implies effective transmission of monetary policy to the interbank market,’ added Mr Molenje.

‘Any instance, where CBK does not participate in affecting marketing liquidity conditions, via injections or withdrawals, would yield an interbank rate (Kesonia) that is misaligned with the CBR. This would mean that there is no transmission of monetary policy.’

Banks’ lending benchmarks are now aligned with the CBR, where a rise in the rate is followed by higher borrowing costs, while cuts anchor lower loan interest rates.

The inaugural Adaptation Investment Summit for Africa (AISA 2026), held in Nairobi this month, came at a defining moment for the continent.

Africa needs between $70 billion and $140 billion annually to adapt to climate change, yet adaptation finance in Sub-Saharan Africa reached only $11 billion in 2024, according to the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

One of the summit’s key outcomes was the launch of the Kenya Uganda Adaptation Accelerator (KUAA), a four-year, $5 million programme backed by the Adaptation Fund.

The initiative will help climate adaptation enterprises become more bankable, reducing dependence on grants while improving access to commercial finance.

Africa’s challenge is not simply a shortage of capital but a shortage of bankable projects.

Investments in flood protection, drought-resilient agriculture and water storage generate significant economic and social benefits, but their returns are often indirect or realised over the long term, making private investors reluctant to participate.

This is where blended finance matters. By using public or philanthropic capital to absorb early risks, it can unlock private investment that would otherwise remain on the sidelines.

However, blended finance should be carefully designed. Public money should fill genuine financing gaps rather than become a permanent subsidy for private investors. Every concessional dollar should mobilise additional commercial capital while delivering measurable development outcomes.

Africa already has a working example. The $750 million Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF), managed by AFC Capital Partners, uses a 32 per cent first-loss tranche provided by the Green Climate Fund to reduce investor risk.

The model has already attracted more than $500 million in commitments, demonstrating how targeted concessional finance can crowd in private capital.

Kenya is well positioned to build on this momentum. The Green Climate Fund’s decision to establish its East and Southern Africa regional office in Nairobi, alongside KUAA, strengthens the city’s role as a regional climate finance hub.

As donor resources tighten, Africa cannot rely on grants alone. Governments should create clear blended finance frameworks and enable pension funds, insurers and other long-term investors to participate confidently in climate investments.

Generations ago, in a Kikuyu homestead, a child’s first credential arrived within minutes of birth. The women gathered at the door and released the ngemi (the ululations of blessing): five for a boy, four for a girl.

Before the child had walked, spoken, or produced anything, the community had already spoken. Destiny was announced first. Urathi (prophecy of purpose). Utonga (true wealth of the heart). Uthamaki (leadership with justice). Ucamba (courage). The elders did not wait for the harvest to name the child.

I begin with the Kikuyu rite because it is the one closest to me, but this architecture was never tribal. The Maasai built their version. So did the Luo, the Kalenjin, the Luhya, the Mijikenda and societies far beyond our borders. Identity was conferred at the door of life, and achievement was expected to grow into it.

Now look at the world the founder walks in. Nobody ululates at incorporation. No community gathers at the registrar’s door. The modern builder enters the arena unannounced and unblessed, and the only voices waiting are conditional ones.

Traction first, applause after. One flat quarter, and the applause is repossessed. Call it the reversed blessing. The market blesses retroactively, and only for as long as the numbers hold. What tradition gave freely at birth, the founder must now purchase every quarter with performance.

And because it is purchased, it is never owned. Press coverage is not ngemi. A funding round is not urathi. An award dinner is not the elders speaking destiny; it is the market issuing a receipt. This is why so many founders are building from a deficit they cannot name. The unblessed founder constructs identity out of KPIs because nothing deeper was ever spoken over him.

Validation becomes a substitute for blessing, and validation, unlike blessing, expires. A blessing tells you who you are before you produce. A rating tells you what you produced, and nothing more. When the story turns, as it eventually turns for every builder, the rated founder discovers there is nothing underneath the numbers. He was measured. He was never blessed.

I have sat with founders at both ends of this deficit. The young builder who has never once heard, from anyone with standing, that he carries something. And the older one, companies built and exited, who admits quietly that no elder ever spoke over his beginning, and that part of every deal since has been an attempt to close a gap capital cannot reach. Different generations.

Same hollow. The market kept rating them. Nobody had ever blessed them. But here is the harder mirror, and it faces those of us further along the journey. The unblessed have a way of repeating the deletion. Look at the instruments we call succession: share transfer forms, title deeds, board resolutions, trust structures. Assets move. Authority moves. The blessing does not appear in a single clause.

We have engineered the transfer of everything we accumulated and nothing we became. Our fathers’ tradition understood succession as two granaries. The first held iri (material wealth): land, livestock, the full granary.

The second held what wealth could not buy: iriiri (honour earned through wisdom) and thayu (the peace of righteous living). And beneath them, the values named one by one: honesty, generosity, justice, courage, temperance. A father who handed over the first granary without the second had not completed the succession.

Modern business has perfected the first granary and deleted the second. This is why the elders’ old warning about wealth and the third generation keeps proving itself in our boardrooms.

The heir receives the shares and not the character that built them. The successor receives the strategy and not the conviction underneath it. We audit everything we hand over except the one thing that determines whether any of it survives: who the receiver has become.

The question that belongs inside every succession plan is one a respected facilitator of fatherhood forums posed recently: it is good that you have given them everything you have.

Have you given them everything you were given? So how does a founder restore the order? Not mysticism. Formation. Blessing, stripped of its ceremony, is the deliberate spoken transfer of identity and values, in the presence of the one receiving it. It costs nothing, and almost nobody does it. Tell your successor who they are before you tell them what to hit. Name the values out loud.

Speak destiny over the young builder in your ecosystem before the metrics justify it, precisely because the metrics do not yet justify it.

That is what the ngemi was: a community going first. And receive it too.

Part of the founder’s loneliness is that we are elders to everyone and sons to no one. I will hold the paradox honestly. The market will never ululate, and it should not. Performance must be measured.

A company run on blessing without numbers is a family gathering, not a business.

The point is not to substitute blessing for measurement. The point is sequence. The reversed blessing built fragile founders.

The deleted blessing is building fragile successors. Between those two failures sits one correction, available to any builder this week, in one conversation, at no cost: say it first. Shares transfer by signature. Blessing transfers only by presence.

When the amusement tears from the rib-cracking Ol Kalou accounts dry, what follows are premium tears for a country that has failed to regulate campaign spending or put in place mechanisms for funding disclosures.

The disturbing patterns were also observed in other by elections. Beyond the elections are the “empowerment” forums and other events where money and treats are openly dished out while politicians and top civil servants display opulence in convoys of state-of-the-art vehicles and helicopters in the midst of grinding poverty.

While relevant institutions are yet to conclude investigations into the incidents in Ol Kalou, the allegations highlight a governance challenge that has persisted across electoral cycles and demonstrate a political funding infrastructure that is highly dependent on illicit financial flows.

The use of money to influence voters breaches the principles of free and fair elections, distorts democratic competition and weakens confidence in the electoral process.

Candidates with access to vast financial resources enjoy an unfair advantage over their rivals, while voters are exposed to inducements that compromise their ability to make independent choices. Ultimately, the cost of seeking public office creates incentives for corruption as successful candidates seek to recover campaign expenditure through abuse of public resources.

Concerns on how much public, tax-funded resources were siphoned to the campaigns still linger. The events in Ol Kalou are symptomatic of a systemic problem.

Despite the Election Campaign Financing Act, 2013, Kenya has conducted two general elections in 2017 and 2022, without implementing or enforcing the law.

These events should be a wake-up call for Parliament to prioritise the Act. This month, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) invited submissions of memoranda on the Campaign Financing Regulations and the Election Campaign Contribution, Spending Limits and Authorised Expenditures. This is timely and requires support by all.

Kenya cannot continue to postpone reforms that are essential to safeguarding electoral integrity.

The IEBC, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Director of Public Prosecutions, police and other enforcement agencies must promptly investigate the Ol Kalou incidents and take action where evidence exists. IEBC should enforce the Electoral Code of Conduct and prosecute breaches.

The concerns on lack of campaign funding regulation in Ol Kalou were raised by stakeholders – state actors, election management agencies, parties, political party registrars, civil society and others – when they convened in Accra to discuss the financing of politics in Africa.

Issues discussed included the future of political finance governance, commodification of democracy in Africa, political capture and elite domination, the impact of technology and media on the political finance ecosystem, standards for transparency in Africa guided by the UN, women and youth political participation and the cost of politics, and the role of the private sector in reforming political finance systems.

The Accra Declaration was adopted with recommendations to stakeholders involved in monitoring, reporting and regulating money in politics.

Democracy in Kenya cannot thrive where elections are determined by the highest bidder instead of the will of the people.

The country must move beyond treating vote-buying and excessive campaign spending as “unfortunate” election traditions and recognise them for what they are – serious threats to constitutional democracy, accountable governance and ethical leadership.

Towards the end of last year, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) rolled out a major policy reform on loan pricing, switching interest rate pricing to a credit risk-based pricing (RBP) framework anchored on the Kenya Shilling Overnight Interbank Average Rate (Kesonia) and a bank-specific ‘K’ factor.

Institutions that were unable to model Kesonia were allowed to continue using the Central Bank Rate (CBR), which is more static and generally less advantageous to banks. The actual transition dates were September 2025 for all new variable-rate loans and February 2026 for existing variable-rate loans.

Analysis of Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) data submitted by banks suggests that the reform has achieved its intended objectives and, in a few corners of the market, greater shifts, perhaps even more than banks bargained for.

Comparing non-performing loan (NPL) rates before and after the introduction of RBP, we see significant changes in performance.

In the data, we observed that large-banks (Tier 1s) aggregate commercial lending saw NPL rates fall from 17.26 percent to 5.43 percent. This does not appear to be the result of immediate credit underwriting improvements but a balance-sheet clean-up executed through either write offs of legacy bad debts or an immediate borrower triggered loan restructure, to avert significant cost escalation.

On shorter term, smaller ticket sizes of below Shi million, NPLs declined from 17.47 percent to 5.19 percent. Here, RBP-driven repricing seems to have encouraged banks to tighten underwriting standards for their SME borrowers. Loans above Sh1 billion at Tier 1 banks experienced a slight increase in NPL rates, from 14.92 percent to 18.18 percent.

Similarly, Tier 3 banks’ largest commercial exposures, which were already among the weakest in the industry, worsened from 48.15 percent to 50.00 percent. Big-ticket lending, remains stubbornly risky regardless of how it is priced.

For Tier 2 banks, we observed that across most loan bands and customer segments, NPLs improved following the introduction of RBP except the Sh10,000-Sh100,000 consumer loan segment, where NPLs surged from 27.91 percent to 44.82 percent.

This segment consists largely of unsecured retail borrowers. This is the segment that risk-based pricing was expected to affect the most since these borrowers typically have the thinnest debt-servicing buffers.

The magnitude of the increase suggests that RBP-driven rate adjustments squeezed borrowers who were already close to the edge, pushing marginal accounts into default rather than simply pricing risk more accurately.

For Tier 3 banks, Consumer lending NPLs increased only modestly, rising by 1.33 percent system-wide. In the Microfinance banks (MFBs) data, we observe that Consumer-loans NPLs still range between 27 percent and 34 percent across the middle loan bands. RBP appears to have had limited impact on MFBs’ underlying risk trajectory, which is unsurprising.

These institutions already serve underbanked and higher-risk customer segments that risk-based pricing is specifically designed to accommodate. As a result, repricing changed less about who they lend to and more about what they charge for lending to already-known risk profiles. The actual result will be seen in the financial performance at the end of the year.

In conclusion, two broader patterns emerge when the tiers are compared side by side.

First, loan volumes grew fastest in the segments where risk appetite appears to have expanded the most.

Second, the segments showing NPL deterioration are concentrated in the same areas: mid-sized retail loans (Tier 2’s Sh10,000-Sh100,000 segment) and large commercial exposures at weaker banks (Tier 3’s above-Sh1 billion segment).

Out of the new framework, banks now possess the pricing tools needed to manage and absorb risks.

The CRB data over the coming quarters will reveal whether that promise holds, particularly for borrowers with the least room to adjust and appear to be cases where RBP’s principles to charge more for higher risk is in conflict with borrowers or exposures that had limited capacity to absorb higher borrowing costs in the first place.

For Kenya’s banking sector, the data in CRB so far supports a cautiously positive assessment.

Risk-based pricing has visibly cleaned up the country’s largest and most systemically important commercial loan book (Tier 1) without triggering a broad-based increase in defaults elsewhere.

However, the sharp deterioration in Tier 2’s mid-market consumer segment and the rapid, largely untested growth of Tier 3’s consumer lending portfolio are the two developments we will observe to see how sustainable they are.

The government has been sued over more than Sh20 billion in unpaid insurance benefits allegedly owed to families of deceased or disabled public servants, including teachers and police officers.

A petition filed at the High Court in Nairobi by John Gitonga claims successive administrations failed to provide mandatory insurance cover and settle death, disability and work injury claims for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, denying beneficiaries entitlements guaranteed by law.

The suit names the Treasury, Social Health Authority (SHA), Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), Public Service Superannuation Fund (PSSF), Public Service Commission, Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Judicial Service Commission, National Police Service Commission, Attorney-General, National Assembly and several insurers.

Mr Gitonga estimates outstanding liabilities at Sh8.4 billion for civil servants, Sh3 billion for police and prison officers, and at least Sh10 billion for teachers.

He argues the government unlawfully operated a self-insurance scheme without an insurance licence, contrary to the Insurance Act, and later transferred administration of the schemes to NHIF and subsequently SHA without legal authority.

The petitioner is seeking declarations that the arrangements are unconstitutional, payment of outstanding claims, forensic audits and accountability orders against public officials.

Mr Gitonga says he filed the case after his sister, a TSC employee, died in service and her children allegedly failed to receive death-in-service, group life and last-expense benefits.

According to the petition, public servants’ insurance premiums worth Sh20.28 billion fell due between April 2022 and April 2025, but only Sh12.59 billion was remitted, leaving Sh7.69 billion unpaid.

It also claims police and prison service insurance premiums outstanding amount to Sh10.67 billion. The government and the other respondents are yet to file their responses in court.

‘Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,’ said Victor Hugo.

Imagine you could tap into the next MPesa-like, market-dominating business idea. Can a struggling entrepreneur, wondering how to survive until month-end, learn from another who is out to build a self-sustaining human city on Mars? Do the six stages of idea quality determine the profitability of your business? Is Elon Musk right when he says artificial intelligence will exceed “the sum of all human intelligence” in about five years, and that “humans will no longer be in charge of the world in 10 years”?

Born in Africa, idea impresario Elon Musk, with an estimated net worth of about $695 billion – tied largely to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX – shared some provocative ideas during a July 23 interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist.

‘Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,’ said Victor Hugo.

Imagine you could tap into the next MPesa-like, market-dominating business idea. Can a struggling entrepreneur, wondering how to survive until month-end, learn from another who is out to build a self-sustaining human city on Mars? Do the six stages of idea quality determine the profitability of your business? Is Elon Musk right when he says artificial intelligence will exceed “the sum of all human intelligence” in about five years, and that “humans will no longer be in charge of the world in 10 years”?

Born in Africa, idea impresario Elon Musk, with an estimated net worth of about $695 billion – tied largely to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX – shared some provocative ideas during a July 23 interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist.