Category: Business Daily

The public procurement watchdog is pursuing 221 constituency offices, three counties, and a number of State agencies for failing to deduct a new levy when paying suppliers and contractors.

The offices are being pursued for breaching the law, which requires them to deduct 0.03 percent of payments to contractors and suppliers, as the Public Procurement Capacity Building Levy.

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For many organisations, HR has become synonymous with compliance. Policies. Approvals. Controls. Risk registers. Sign-offs. In highly regulated environments, this instinct is understandable. But somewhere along the way, compliance stopped being a foundation and quietly became the strategy. That shift is costing organisations more than they realise.

Compliance-first HR is reactive by design. It focuses on avoiding what might go wrong rather than enabling what could go right. Decisions are framed around risk mitigation instead of value creation.

New ideas are slowed down by approvals. Managers are trained to ask, ‘Is this allowed?’ rather than, ‘Is this effective?’ Over time, HR becomes the department of no. And when that happens, innovation moves elsewhere.

The irony is that compliance was never meant to replace strategy. It was meant to support it. Labour laws, governance frameworks, and internal controls exist to protect organisations and employees, not to paralyse them.

Yet in many workplaces, HR energy is disproportionately spent on ticking boxes while deeper people challenges go unaddressed. Poor leadership behaviour is tolerated because it is harder to confront than a policy breach.

Engagement issues are documented instead of solved. Performance problems are managed through forms rather than conversations.

This approach also weakens HR’s influence. When leaders only experience HR through audits, warnings, and process enforcement, they stop seeing HR as a strategic partner.

HR is invited late into conversations, often after damage has already been done, and expected to clean up rather than co-create. That is not a seat at the table. It is a safety net.

Compliance-first HR also struggles in moments that require speed and judgement. The modern workplace is shaped by hybrid work, multigenerational teams, rapid skill shifts, and constant change. These realities demand discretion, context, and human judgement.

Policies alone cannot guide leaders through burnout, conflict, ethical dilemmas, or cultural breakdowns. When HR hides behind rules instead of exercising influence, employees feel unseen and leaders feel unsupported.

None of this suggests that compliance is optional. In fact, strong compliance is non-negotiable. But it should be the baseline, not the headline.

The most effective HR functions treat compliance as hygiene and invest the rest of their energy in leadership capability, culture, workforce planning, and employee experience. They use policy as a guardrail, not a handbrake.

A shift away from compliance-first HR requires courage. It means HR professionals must move from being rule enforcers to trusted advisors. It requires stronger commercial understanding, better data storytelling, and the confidence to challenge leaders when behaviour contradicts values, even when it is uncomfortable.

It also means acknowledging that sometimes the resistance to change does not sit with leadership alone. At times, the rot is in HR too, when we choose safety over impact.

As organisations prepare for a new year of uncertainty and opportunity, HR must ask itself a hard question. Are we protecting the organisation from risk, or are we helping it grow? The future of work will not be shaped by those who simply follow the rules, but by those who know when to uphold them and when to evolve beyond them.

If HR wants to remain relevant, trusted, and influential, the shift must start now. Compliance should keep us safe. Strategy should take us forward.

Real estate investors are expected to hold back on launching new projects for 2026, instead opting to complete ongoing ones and absorb completed units, a new market tracker says.

A review by real estate firm Knight Frank showed that real estate investors have adopted a cautious wait-and-see strategy on election-related uncertainty, with supply largely limited to completion of ongoing projects.

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The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has received backing from the Tax Appeals Tribunal to tax unexplained bank deposits in the fight against tax evasion.

The tribunal ruled that money flowing into bank accounts is presumed to be income unless the savers can prove with documents that the cash is not profits.

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Smarter products must move beyond single risk triggers to reflect real farming conditions, improve data and pricing accuracy, enhance affordability through targeted support and value chain integration, and align policy, technology and finance to deliver timely and reliable resilience at scale.

World Bank data show that agriculture employs about 50 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s labor force and contributes around 18 percent to regional GDP.

However, extreme weather events driven by climate change are projected to reduce crop revenues by up to 30 percent beyond 2050, driving 20-30 percent into poverty in high-emission scenarios (+2°C). These repeated shocks severely threaten smallholder farmers’ livelihoods and regional food security.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that about 97 percent of smallholder farmers in Africa lack insurance due to limited access, while premiums remain unaffordable without subsidies. Furthermore, according to One Acre Fund, subsidized agri-insurance is available in only 4 of 54 African countries.

Traditional agricultural insurance relies on lengthy assessments to quantify loss before compensation and lacks the ability to capture climate-driven losses, which are absorbed by farmers. This protection gap reveals flaws in product design, data quality, regulation and trust.

Parametric insurance holds promise in closing this gap by offering smallholder farmers quick payouts based on precise and pre-defined thresholds, such as extreme temperatures or rainfall levels.

It delivers liquidity when farmers critically need it most by bypassing the lengthy loss assessments commonly associated with traditional indemnity insurance.

However, many existing parametric schemes focus on a single risk, typically drought. In reality, farmers confront multiple overlapping threats, including heat stress, floods, pests and crop diseases.

These challenges are compounded by scarce climate data, low farmer awareness and weak distribution networks. This disconnect creates basis risk, where payout triggers do not match actual losses or account for crop sensitivity or microclimate, eroding farmers’ confidence. Parametric products must better reflect farming realities and be clearly explained so farmers grasp what is covered.

Additionally, policy and market structures lag. The Nairobi Declaration on Sustainable Insurance 2025 Current State Report highlights persistent barriers: affordability challenges for vulnerable groups, fragmented regulation across the region and limited integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into underwriting and operations.

ESG-linked underwriting in 2025 accounted for just 6.4% of portfolios, with only 5.6 percent explicitly targeting low-income households.

This leads to an underestimation of climate and social risks, resulting in unstable pricing. Better incorporation of climate metrics, land-use information and vulnerability indicators would allow pricing that accounts for escalating future impacts beyond historical patterns.

Affordability is central to sustained resilience. Low-income farmers often cannot pay premiums upfront. Targeted, time-bound subsidies prove vital during initial rollout. Bundling insurance with inputs, such as hybrid seeds, fertilizer, or credit, lets farmers cover costs when cash flows in, usually at harvest.

Such strategies sync insurance with farmers’ financial cycles, easing pressure in planting seasons. They also strengthen distribution via cooperatives, agribusinesses and lenders, improving policy retention and cutting dependence on permanent subsidies.

Multi-risk and hybrid models are emerging. These combine parametric triggers for fast payouts with selective loss verification from traditional indemnity insurance. The combination reduces basis risk while managing costs.

Technological progress is also making a big difference. Satellite imagery, advanced weather analytics and straightforward tools like picture-based crop monitoring enhance accuracy and build trust between insurers and farmers. Furthermore, insurtech innovations cut costs through mobile sign-ups, automated payouts, value-chain partnerships and digital tools.

ACRE Africa, a leading agricultural insurtech, leverages satellite data and mobile USSD platforms to provide index-based insurance. It partners with global reinsurers to secure risk capacity and local underwriters for mainstreaming, proving that scalable coverage can reach remote farmers even amid low literacy and connectivity issues in rural areas.

Financing remains a key enabler. Donor funding can drive early uptake, but long-term sustainability depends on mobilizing private capital through public-private partnerships. Initiatives like the AfDB Africa Climate Risk Insurance Facility for Adaptation (ACRIFA) and FSD Africa’s Inclusive Insurtech Investment can de-risk markets, crowd in private investment and enable scale.

Furthermore, regional risk pooling magnifies these gains. By spreading climate risks across borders, pooled mechanisms reduce volatility, decrease reinsurance costs and unlock global capital.

The African Risk Capacity (ARC) illustrates this potential at the sovereign level. Its Replica Programme extends benefits to humanitarian partners. In Mozambique, ARC disbursed over $5.4 million (about Sh696 million) in 2025 for drought and Cyclone Chido, demonstrating how parametric, rules-based financing enables swift aid.

When executed effectively, parametric insurance can secure farmers’ sustained resilience, safeguard food security and promote long-term economic stability throughout the continent.

Former Limuru MP George Nyanja has suffered a major legal setback after the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court decision that had declared the sale of his Karen home illegal.

The appellate court ruled that Mr Nyanja’s remedy, if any, lay in pursuing damages against City Finance Bank and not in reversing a property sale that took place more than a decade ago.

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Koko Networks, a clean energy startup, has folded operations in the Kenyan market due to financial woes exacerbated by the failure to secure a permit to sell carbon credits in the lucrative markets abroad.

The exit, which ends an 11-year stint in Kenya, has triggered a spat with the Treasury and taxpayers now set to foot a Sh21 billion penalty for breach of contract unless the government proves that it did not breach contractual agreements made with Koko.

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Salaried workers earning below Sh50,000 monthly are set to enjoy income tax cuts of between Sh731 and Sh2,127 under proposed changes to the taxation brackets aimed at boosting the disposable income of low-earning workers.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi says his ministry has prepared a Tax laws (Amendment) Bill that will raise the threshold of untaxed income from Sh24,000 to Sh30,000 and have income falling between Sh30,000 and Sh50,000 taxed at 25 percent.

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A former Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officer was unfairly dismissed after being set up as the “fall person” in a sugar smuggling racket at the Busia border, the Employment and Labour Relations Court has ruled.

The court found no valid reason for KRA to dismiss Beverly Lebene, a border control officer with 14 years of service, over alleged negligence, stating that the smuggling was facilitated by other officers, one being a staff member whose sexual advances she had rejected.

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Kenyans understand that in 2026, despite bold efforts to raise revenues, the government is actively borrowing to finance operations. Faced with that reality, it has no justification creating a savings account.

Yet that is precisely what is being attempted with the proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).

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