Category: Business Daily

Last week, we left the classroom and entered the battlefield; that chaotic space where African founders learn the real curriculum of leadership. This week, we step deeper into that learning. Because once you’ve recognised how formal education failed you, the next question is how to replace it. What does it take to learn in real time to build while being built, to teach while still learning?

Across coffee tables and co-working spaces, in WhatsApp groups and late-night calls, a quiet curriculum is taking shape. It has no exams, no degrees and no dean, but it forges something formal education never could, wisdom born from lived experience.

Every founder must become a lifelong student, and in Africa that learning must stretch from the first spark of a startup to the stewardship of legacy.

The startup stage is a crash course in humility. You learn by doing, by listening, by being wrong in public and showing up again the next morning. The world becomes your university, the market your examiner and every mistake a tuition fee.

Founders quickly realise they must treat failure as feedback, not verdict.

They seek mentors, swap insights, and build small tribes of trust where they can be honest about fear and fatigue. In these circles, emotional resilience is strengthened and social intelligence deepens.

When success finally arrives and the company begins to scale, the syllabus changes. The founder, who once did everything must now learn to lead others who can do it better. Leadership becomes less about control and more about coordination, turning chaos into coherence without losing the company’s soul.

Strategy shifts from survival to sustainability. This is where strategic clarity and spiritual grounding intersect. Decisions move slower but cut deeper.

At this point, mentorship and community become lifelines. Founders who invest in peer networks avoid the trap of isolation. They find wisdom in other founders’ stories, learning to spot blind spots before they become pitfalls. The humility to remain a student even at the top becomes a defining advantage.

As one founder said, experience doesn’t make you wise; reflection does.

Eventually, the baton must pass. The next generation the heir, the successor, the new steward steps into a legacy they did not build but must now preserve. No MBA can prepare them for that moment. They inherit more than profit; they inherit a story. That story must be reinterpreted for a new era.

Mary Waceke Thongoh-Muia often says unchecked entitlement erodes legacy faster than competition.

A wise founder steps aside not because they’ve run out of strength but because they’ve built others strong enough to continue. Letting go becomes the final module in the hidden curriculum the hardest, but the one that defines true leadership.

And now, as founders chart the next decade, a new teacher has joined the circle artificial intelligence (AI). For the first time, founders can learn from living data as quickly as they learn from lived experience.

AI is not here to replace intuition but to refine it; not to erase the human touch but to sharpen our discernment.

In the hands of a conscious founder, AI becomes an amplifier of wisdom a digital co-mentor that helps us see patterns faster, test ideas smarter, and scale systems ethically.

That is why African Founders Operating System with its emotional, social, strategic, spiritual and mindset dimensions matters more now than ever. It ensures that as technology accelerates us, humanity still anchors us.

Across startups, scale-ups and legacy enterprises, one truth connects them all: founders learn best by doing, failing, reflecting and now by integrating insight with intelligence, both human and artificial.

In truth, the classroom never left us; it simply moved. It now lives in conversations after midnight, in mentorship lunches, in podcasts and panels where honesty replaces theory, and increasingly, in the quiet guidance of digital systems that can mirror our decisions back to us.

Founders are teaching one another what our institutions could not; how to build without losing humanity, how to harness intelligence without surrendering integrity. That is the hidden curriculum in the education that prepares us not only to lead but to last.

This second part completes our reflection on the founder’s true education from the failures of the classroom to the revelations of the battlefield. Yet in many ways, the learning has only begun. What started as a conversation about gaps in our schooling has become a blueprint for a new kind of consciousness one that turns founders into teachers, and companies into classrooms.

The challenge ahead is not to abandon education, but to redesign it in our own image: practical, soulful and grounded in shared wisdom.

Because in the end, the founder’s greatest legacy will not be the company they build, but the minds and movements they inspire to keep learning with heart, with humility and with the help of every new tool, human or digital, that expands what it means to be wise.

Michael Anthony Macharia is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Seven Seas Technologies and Ponea Health

The Nairobi Securities Exchange has recorded back-to-back gains of more than 30 percent in 2024 and again so far in 2025, buoying investor confidence and lifting portfolio values.

But for those who stayed on the sidelines, is it too late to join the rally?

In this episode, NSE Chief Executive Officer Frank Mwiti breaks down the key drivers of the market recovery, where fresh opportunities remain, and what investors should watch as the momentum continues.

Make Money, a podcast series, hosted by Kepha Muiruri, from Business Daily Africa unravels ways to be financially savvy. Get practical tips and advice on how to increase your income, build wealth, and achieve financial freedom in Kenya. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor, we’ve got something for everyone.

At least one person in your circle knows about Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and at least three have at least heard about it.

Truth is, the practice and the triple pronged concept is growing in importance, escalating in application and emerging as an irreplaceable criteria when assessing a business, organisation, and even national policy and legislation.

Consider, this, just as you wouldn’t run a warehouse without knowing what’s on your shelves in real time, you can’t run a business without knowing the health of your supply chain.

Supply chain ESG looks at the end-to-end footprint of the value chain, assessing issues like data management, carbon emissions, sourcing, risk management, and waste management- and the world is paying attention.

According to the 2024 Global Trade Report, ESG is now a deciding factor for buyers and consumers, with regulatory pressure pushing companies to collect hard data on their suppliers to prove their own sustainability credentials.

Leading the charge in setting industry benchmarks for supply chain ESG is the European Union, placing green development at the core of policy creation and enforcement, weaving green principles directly into law.

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is a directive that needs non-EU and EU companies that have large operations with or in the EU, and/or are considered to operate in ‘high-impact sectors’ to carry out due diligence on human rights and environmental considerations across their supply chains to encourage responsible corporate behaviour.

The aim is to foster responsible corporate behaviour, complementing regulations such as the German Supply Chain Act to create a unified standard for supply chain responsibility across EU member states.

At its core, CSDDD aims to regulate companies by making sure that goods are produced or procured in accordance with emerging environmental, labour, and human rights best practices.

It also pushes organisations toward minimising greenhouse gas emissions in pursuit of net neutrality and a more responsible global economy.

Risk identification is non-negotiable under CSDDD. This is a requirement rooted in the simple truth that you cannot manage what you cannot see. In practice, risk identification looks like breaking your processes down to three tiers and undergoing a three-pronged materiality assessment of the existing risk.

Examples include human rights violations, excessive carbon emissions, supplier integrity issues, and vulnerabilities buried deep within operational layers.

The goal is to develop early warning indicators, such as high-risk geographies or industries, to strengthen corporate accountability and safeguard against disruptions. In the long run, it increases corporate accountability and supports compliance with CSDDD.

This acts as a motivator as companies are to proactively design preventative, mitigatory, and remedial strategies before risks turn into crises.

For the supply chain, the rubber hits the road where CSDDD demands data collection and traceability. A lot of companies are grappling with the leviathan called ‘scope 3 emissions’- hiding in supplier scorecards, freight forwarder reports, and every outsourced process.

It’s daunting because it depends on your suppliers delivering clean, verifiable, and traceable data. But, in supply chains as in logistics, today’s bottleneck often becomes tomorrow’s breakthrough- even if it may be at the supplier’s expense.

Companies with complete certainty will start demanding more from suppliers. The scope of supplier audits will expand to include ESG considerations.

Over time, human rights, labour conditions, waste management, tracking and reporting, risk management, accountability, and emissions reductions will shift from being ‘best practices’ to being non-negotiable requirements.

Non-compliance with CSDDD can face consequences such as civil liabilities, fines, and even exclusion from procurement processes, as companies are now held accountable for ESG compliance and violations throughout the value supply chain.

Incidentally, in Kenya, due diligence is not enshrined in law, which means it is often treated as a voluntary precaution that progressive corporates can choose to adopt. However, there is an encouraging trend: early adopters in the industries such as the financial, energy, and FMCG industry are already embracing ESG-aligned due diligence checks and seeking additional support to integrate these principles into existing policies.

Incidentally, their proactive stance has inadvertently placed them ahead of the curve, preparing them for the vision set by CSDDD- where, by 2029 and beyond, enforcement will strengthen, and ESG reporting and communication will become mandatory.

This is a silent call to action for domestic suppliers to address existing gaps in their operations so that they’re not caught unprepared when due diligence checks reach their doorstep.

In practice, when managing a supply chain, new demands require agility and precision. So, as suppliers, how can we best adjust ourselves in this space?

The first step has to be education. A strong knowledge base enables us to spot operational weaknesses early and allocate resources effectively where they are needed.

Key topic areas outlined by CSDDD include human rights, environmental responsibility, good governance, and effective methods for M and E and data documentation.

After establishing an educational foundation, we then move into specialisation- assigning clear ESG responsibilities to designated individuals across the supply chain.

This means setting up standardised SOPs (standard operating procedures) for data collection and documentation so that audit-ready records are always available. Such structures build ownership, prevent duplication of effort, and improve coordination across functions.

Lastly, ESG needs to be embedded in governing policies, for instance, adding pointed clauses on anti-corruption clauses to contracts or aligning internal policies with both CSDDD requirements and buyer expectations.

CSDDD can be complex, and some may say expensive, but if we don’t accept direction and embrace them, your contracts, reputation, and market access could vanish overnight.

Even though of course this warning only applies to companies that fit the criteria to which CSDDD is applied to, we can’t deny the possibility of its scope of application extending to the smaller players tomorrow.

The bright side is that the same steps that prepare you for CSDDD can also earn you a stronger reputation, future-proof your business, attract collaboration and innovation, and unlock new markets.

Abdullahi Bulle, the founder of Nuria Bookstore, who bet big on self-published authors, always has a thirst for entrepreneurship. Even while working at Chase Bank, a job that he got immediately after completing his undergraduate studies, and rising to the rank of credit manager, he had a side hustle. He was comfortably employed, with good pay, but he went into a motor vehicle spare parts business, running a shop alongside other side-hustles.

Unfortunately, the businesses failed, and Mr Bulle has extra time on his hands. He decided to advance his studies, and along the way, he developed a strong reading habit, including during lunch breaks at work, which his colleagues noticed.

‘They were borrowing my books, seeking book recommendations, and one of them wondered why I was gifting free books instead of selling. That challenged me, but since I had the trauma of previous business failures, I could not jump into the business of selling books blindly,’ says Mr Bulle.

Armed with his go-to-market strategy research report, Mr Bulle discovered that online book space was nonexistent and decided to start an online book platform.

He looked for a web developer, but unfortunately, could not find a good one locally. He got a US-based one, who took advantage of his little IT knowledge to overcharge for the services at Sh400,000.

Mr Bulle says that after ordering books worth Sh125,000 from the UK in 2016, he realised that the website was not really meeting his expectations and made a painful decision of abandoning it altogether and developed a new one from scratch at an extra cost.

‘The first year was tough and challenging because in the same year, my bank was put under receivership with all my savings, though we still managed to sell some of the books,’ he says.

When the books business started picking up well, Mr Bulle finally quit employment in 2018. He decided to set up a physical store, tucked on the first floor of the Bazaar Building along Nairobi’s busy Moi Avenue.

Unlike other big bookshops, his is surrounded by mobile phone dealers, clothing, and the likes, but is gradually gaining a share of the market.

His strong focus on local self-published books, which had been avoided by top bookstores, started paying off. By the end of that year, he had onboarded five Kenyan authors, who have now grown to 2,650.

Self-published authors are authors who do not go through the mainstream publishers, so, if you have a ready manuscript, Nuria Bookstore links the author to an editor, book designer, and once it is ready, the author buys the barcode from Kenya National Library Services at a cost of Sh1,500, then brings the book for sale.

‘Compared to other bookshops which do not stock authors without brand names, we enable them [self-published authors] to crack the market without having to go through the mainstream publishers,’ he adds.

The hard part

The ex-banker says that the biggest challenge he has had to contend with and still do is marketing self-published books because ordinarily, most bookshops reserve their shelves for fast-moving books, which makes business sense.

However, the good thing at first it was an online platform, therefore operational expenses were low. Online also gave them a bigger reach and visibility. All they needed was to pick and deliver whenever a buyer placed an order, which worked well during the early years.

‘The other issue was how long the books would stay in the store, so we invested heavily in online marketing even though online and social media as a marketing medium wasn’t popular then,’ recalls Mr Bulle.

As a book seller, he adds that the other challenge is stock theft or stock loss, which leads to serious cashflow problems, hence the reason he prefers hiring staff based on honesty and not just academic papers.

He says that it has helped the bookseller a lot in managing cash flow and paying suppliers on time, thus bridging the finance load.

‘Setting up a bookshop in prime locations like the Central Business District or high-end shopping malls is expensive in terms of rent space. Content creation around books is equally higher than other products,’ he adds.

How much he earns

He says that, as a bookseller just like others, he takes 30 percent commission on any book sold, inclusive of 16 percent, but Nuria Bookstore has a unique approach of a pay-as-we-sell model with a decentralised vendor platform, a first in Africa.

‘As an author or publisher, you register as a vendor on the platform, upload the book, and every time a customer visits the link and orders a book, you get a real-time notification, and once delivery is completed, money is reflected in your account/vendor portal immediately,’ he explains.

Despite the impressive growth, Mr Bulle says expansion was not easy due to limited resources despite of making a pitch to nine potential investors between 2016 and 2021.

‘They all rejected me, so he abandoned that approach after realising that not every investor understands the book-selling business. Book selling is a volume business, not a high margin one, yet the majority want high quick returns. Two, due to the low reading culture in our society, they understand that market dynamic and are unwilling to wait for many years for returns,’ he adds.

He cites an example of Amazon, which took 10 years to break-even but was continuously backed by investors and is presently the biggest e-commerce company in the world.

Risks to the business

Mr Bulle says the biggest risk, not just to his business but other book sellers as well, are pirated books and online PDF copies that don the streets, aided by the fact that most of buyers are price driven, not value-driven, and are unethical.

He says that focusing on promoting African books has worked in their favor compared to other bookstores.

‘We have also given life to books that are over 70 years old that were lying in publishers’ warehouses, and Kenyans can now identify Nuria as the go-to African books store,’ says Mr Bulle.

Regrets

If there is one regret he has had is the inability to raise funds early enough for expansion, as he was a bit worried about losing control over the business.

‘I did not open up myself earlier enough to banks to help me grow the business. That lack of boldness held me back,’ says Mr Bulle is looking at setting up a new branch in Nyali, Mombasa.

He encourages entrepreneurs with good ideas or with a business that is doing well to borrow money and payback as quickly as possible because the biggest challenge to the growth of a business is usually raising equity or debt capital.

‘In 2016, I needed around Sh5 million. In 2021, when I stopped pitching, I probably needed Sh50 million, and if I were to raise money now, it could be between Sh100 to Sh200 million, but the business is now self-lubricating,’ he says.

Mr Bulle clarifies that the problem with most investors is that they need a ‘massage presentation’ during a pitch or a tried and tested concept with a fixed timeline on return on investment, something he couldn’t promise prospective investors.

‘This is partly the reason some startups collapse. They probably sold ‘lies and being liquid during early years brings growth, but that becomes unsustainable in the long term,’ adds Mr Bulle.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide a $48 million (Sh6.2 billion) loan to partly fund the construction of OrPower 22’s geothermal power plant in Menengai, Nakuru County.

IFC -the private sector lending arm of the World Bank- disclosed the two loan tranches of $30 million (Sh3.87 billion) and $18 million (Sh2.32 billion) for the project whose total cost is $92 million (Sh11.89 billion). Kaishan Group and other lenders will top up the balance.

OrPower 22 is one of the three energy firms that are developing geothermal power plants in Menengai. Each of these plants will have a 35 Megawatts (MW) capacity.

The three are key in boosting the share of clean energy in the national grid, offering Kenya a chance to boost electricity supply at cheap prices.

‘The proposed financing package includes, a senior loan of up to $30 million from IFC’s own account, a dollar interest rate swap intermediated by IFC, parallel loan of up to $16.4 million and a senior loan of up to $18 million from IFC acting in its capacity as implementing entity for the Managed Co-lending Portfolio Program (MCPP). The balance is covered by equity from Kaishan,” IFC says in disclosures.

Kaishan Group fully bought OrPower 22 two years ago, a move that gave the Chinese firm entry into Kenya’s electricity generation space.

The other two firms developing the geothermal power plants in Menengai are Globeleq of Britain and Sosian Energy, which is linked to the family of the late President Daniel arap Moi.

Sosian completed its plant and started supplying the electricity to Kenya Power in 2023. Globeleq and OrPower 22 expected to complete their plants and link them to the national grid by June 2026.

The three projects are key to boosting Kenya’s electricity supply amid growing reliance on Ethiopia and Uganda to meet the fast-rising demand.

The share of electricity imports in the national grid crossed the 10 percent-mark for the first time in the year ended June 2025 as Kenya deepened its reliance on neighbouring countries to avoid power rationing and blackouts.

Official data shows that electricity imports accounted for 10.6 percent or 1.53 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the year ended June more than double the share of 4.87 percent 644 million kWh two years ago and a paltry one percent in the year to June 2021.

Electricity from Ethiopia accounted for 81 percent of the total imports in the year ended June 2015. Kenya Power has a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Ethiopia Electric Power where a kWh is priced at $0.065 (Sh8.44).

Imports in a month hit a historic high of 150.45 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in August this year, largely driven by a surge in shipments from Uganda.

Kenya Power’s imports from Uganda nearly doubled in August to 32.5 million kWh in August this year compared to 18.95 million kWh a month earlier as imports from Ethiopia dipped in the same period.

The government has settled Sh93 billion road sector pending bills using bank loans ahead of the issuance of a bond to clear the arrears accumulated in building transport infrastructure.

The Treasury says the State tapped a Sh104 billion loan from a syndicate of commercial banks to settle verified pending bills in the sector, allowing road contractors to resume abandoned projects.

The payments have revitalised growth for the building and construction sector, which fell into a technical recession, marking two consecutive quarters of contraction to September last year.

The government says it is inching closer to raising Sh175 billion from a roads bond, which is expected to clear the commercial bank bridge facility and foot the remaining arrears to contractors.

‘We have already paid Sh93 billion to road contractors who have since resumed work, and I am sure you can attest that road construction has resumed across the country,’ said Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi on Tuesday.

‘We started by going for a bridge facility where we have raised Sh104 billion. This shall be extinguished once the road bond is finalised. We are currently finalising the market sounding process ahead of the bond issuance, which will take place this month, where we aim to raise Sh175 billion in the first tranche.’

Investors in the roads bond will be paid using part of the collections from the Roads Maintenance Levy Fund, which has been securitised using collections of Sh7 per litre of petrol or diesel sold.

Kenya increased the fuel levy from Sh18 to Sh25 per litre in July 2024, with the additional charge being expected to cover payments to the road’s bond investors.

The Trade and Development Bank, KCB Bank Kenya, Absa Bank Kenya and UBA Kenya Bank have been the primary financiers for the bridge facility, with UBA estimating its disbursement to the fund at Sh12.9 billion ($100 million), backed by its Nigerian parent.

The Kenya Roads Board has been wiring drawings from the bridge facility to road agencies, including the Kenya National Highways Authority, the Kenya Rural Roads Authority and the Kenya Urban Roads Authority, to meet contractor payments.

Construction sector activities grew by 5.7 percent in the second quarter of 2025, offsetting a 3.7 percent contraction at the same time last year, as per data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

The recovery helped lift overall gross domestic product growth for the period to five percent from 4.6 percent previously.

Cement consumption increased by 23.9 percent to stand at 2,424,400 tonnes from 1,957,100 tonnes in the corresponding quarter of 2024.

The quantity of imported bitumen rose to 22,659,300 tonnes from 15,566,200 tonnes, while iron and steel imports stood at 526,606,400 tonnes from 222,112,300 tonnes previously.

The construction sector has also seen an uptick in lending, where credit to enterprises in the sector grew by 21.7 percent to stand at Sh159.6 billion in the 12 months to June 2025 from Sh131.1 billion a year earlier.

‘Payments to the road sector have helped in boosting economic growth,’ said the Treasury minister.

A task force appointed by President William Ruto is expected to complete the verification of all pending bills next month before forwarding a report to the Exchequer, detailing initiatives to clear the arrears.

‘We have put up diverse financing strategies and payment plans to deal with pending bills once the final report is received,’ said Mr Mbadi.

National government pending bills stood at Sh526 billion in June, rising from Sh421.6 billion in March to defy the road sector payments.

Kenya’s debt service to the United States surged in the year to June 2025 to Sh18.4 billion, up from just Sh357 million in 2024, as the government accelerated repayments amid a policy shift by Washington to end direct lending to countries.

The 51.6 times jump pushed Kenya’s US debt repayments of both principal and interest to record levels, reflecting efforts to clear sovereign debt owed to one of its key bilateral lenders.

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said the fast-tracked payments follow a change in the US’s bilateral lending approach from direct government loans to financing through its agencies.

‘We are clearing the loans to the US government in about two or three years because the US government changed their model of financing and now they are financing activities and programmes using their agencies directly,’ said Mbadi during a press briefing Tuesday.

‘These are loans that were taken previously that are now retiring. Some of them are from many years ago, and we are now completing their repayment. That is why there is that elevation in debt repayment.’

As of June, Kenya’s debt to the US stood at $185.47 million (Sh23.9 billion), a steep drop from $310.13 million (Sh40 billion) a year earlier, Treasury data shows.

The reduction means Kenya now owes less to the US than to Belgium and Italy, which have historically lagged Washington in lending to African governments.

The shift to using agencies for project financing means Kenya may no longer receive broad budgetary support from the US, but rather sector-specific funding from institutions such as the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Prosper Africa.

The DFC has recently been strengthened under the Donald Trump administration, with its funding capacity raised from $60 billion (Sh7.8 trillion) to $250 billion (Sh32.3 trillion) and its mandate expanded to invest and lend even in high-income countries.

This new financing model mirrors that of the United Kingdom, which no longer lends directly to foreign governments but instead channels development funding through its agencies -the British International Investment (BII) and the UK Export Finance (UKEF).

Such models shield developed countries from the debt distress risks prevalent in many developing nations while mitigating political exposure in an increasingly fragmented global landscape.

Within the past year, Kenya also cleared its debt to Finland and sharply reduced its outstanding obligations to Denmark, Austria, and China.

However, as it races to retire US debt, Kenya has increased borrowing from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, all of which remain among its top ten bilateral lenders.

Even so, due to the sharp reduction in debt owed to the US and China, Kenya’s total bilateral debt fell by $377.16 million (Sh48.7 billion) to $8.6 billion (Sh1.1 trillion) as it turned to more concessional multilateral and commercial debt.

Overall, the country’s external debt stock rose by $2.5 billion (Sh323 billion) to $42.4 billion (Sh5.5 trillion), driven largely by higher commercial and multilateral borrowing from lenders such as the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The High Court in Kiambu has ordered supermarket chain Cleanshelf to pay a shopper Sh500,000 for violating her fundamental rights by publicly searching her on suspicion of shoplifting at one of its stores.

The petitioner, Evelyn Kagwiria Anampiu, sued the retailer in 2023, seeking Sh4 million in damages due to the public humiliation suffered at Cleanshelf in Ruaka, which, she claims, damaged her reputation in the community and traumatised her.

Court papers show that she was not found with any concealed items. The Kiambu High Court agreed with Ms Anampiu that the retailer violated her right to human dignity, privacy, and consumer protection as enshrined in the Constitution.

This sets a precedent for retailers in the country on how to legally deal with shoplifters or shoppers suspected of the same without violating their rights.

‘After careful consideration of the facts and the evidence presented, this court has arrived at the finding that the petitioner’s rights under Articles 28 (human dignity), 31 (privacy) and 46 (consumer protection) of the Constitution were violated,’ said the court in its judgment.

In its response to the petition, Cleanshelf claimed that the search was a routine practice on any shoppers suspected of shoplifting, and that it was the respondent who brought the public humiliation on herself by shouting and attracting attention.

But this claim only worked against them, confirming to the court not only that the petitioner was searched on shoplifting suspicion, but also that the search was done in a public place, contrary to the store’s policy and the requirements of the Constitution.

‘The respondent bears the duty to protect its customers from humiliation and embarrassment, and it is clear that the petitioner was exposed to a search that was carried out in an improper manner, thereby infringing on her rights as enshrined in the Constitution,’ ruled the court.

However, the court declined to grant the petitioner the requested Sh4 million compensation for damages, instead granting her Sh500,000 because she did not provide a witness to testify of the trauma and reputation damage she has undergone.

In addition to the compensation the retailer has been ordered to repay, it has been ordered to bear the costs of the petition.

This is not the first time Cleanshelf is finding itself on the wrong side of the law. In August, the retailer was faulted by the employment and labour relations court for firing a ‘weak’ employee.

Across East Africa, fuel is one of the highest operating costs for businesses, often accounting for 60 percent of a fleet’s entire budget.

Fluctuating global fuel prices create constant budgeting uncertainty, forcing companies to either absorb costs, which squeezes profits, or pass them on to customers, which can hurt competitiveness.

Figures from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) show that between 2021 and 2025, fuel prices in Kenya have risen by more than Sh70 due to increases in global landing costs, freight charges, as well as taxes and levies.

Yet, while the fluctuating oil prices contribute largely to the spiralling fuel expenses for businesses, many companies are losing millions for a different reason.

Due to a reliance on manual systems that are easy to manipulate and inefficient, many companies are losing millions through fuel theft and are spending more time on data entry than on key functions.

Think of paper logbooks, endless phone calls to approve fuelling and conducting monthly reconciliations to match receipts that never quite add up; these manual processes lead to losses that quietly drain profits.

According to estimates, businesses lose nearly 30 percent of productivity every year due to disconnected systems and manual data entry.

While businesses cannot control global fuel prices, they can control their fuel management through technology, which offers a more efficient and transparent way to manage expenses.

Research shows that digital tools can help businesses cut fuel costs by roughly 24 percent through route optimisation, real-time driver monitoring, prevention of fuel theft, minimising idle time and reducing maintenance expenses.

This digital approach isn’t a new idea; it’s a globally proven model.

You only need to look at market leaders like Wex and Corpay that have built massive businesses by helping companies simplify their fleet operations. Locally, we have integrated platforms like Pesapal Drive, which leverage technology to facilitate seamless fleet fuel management.

As global fuel prices continue to spiral, such tools can play a major role in enabling businesses to manage their expenses; however, integrating them into company operations introduces obstacles, which must be addressed for successful implementation.

Focusing on communication, resource allocation, and security planning can help to strengthen implementation efforts, helping businesses maximise the benefits of technological advancements.

Continuous digital upskilling can also help to equip organisations with the knowledge and skills required to integrate new technology into their operations effectively.

In addition, creating a culture that sees change as an opportunity rather than a threat by proactively sharing the reasons for the change and the benefits it will bring to organisations could enhance the adoption of emerging technologies.

A recent Business Daily article – IMF raises alarm over static Kenya shilling versus dollar-has set off a fresh wave of commentary about the exchange-rate policy.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) public posture and press coverage are important and deserve scrutiny.

However, before concluding that exchange-rate ‘stability’ is automatically wrong or costly, it is worth taking a clear-eyed, evidence-based look at the facts on the ground.

In short, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a stable currency.

On the contrary, a stable foreign-exchange environment can be a sign of well-functioning markets and effective central bank policy. It helps traders, importers and exporters plan, reduces hedging costs, and limits the inflationary pass-through from imported prices. The suggestion that stability alone is a problem risks fixing what is not broken.

It is important to start with the IMF’s public statements. An IMF staff team visited Nairobi in late September or early October 2025 to assess Kenya’s macroeconomic position and discuss a possible Fund-supported programme.

The Fund emphasised the need for macroeconomic stability, debt sustainability and market-based exchange rate flexibility as routine elements of its advice.

At some public forums and press accounts, IMF staff and some media characterised the shilling’s behaviour as ‘too stable,’ implying that the exchange rate may not be responding sufficiently to market signals and could be complicating monetary policy transmission.

Nevertheless, there are important nuances that were either omitted or not sufficiently emphasised in this account. First, the IMF’s standard policy advice that exchange rates should be primarily market-determined is a general principle, not a one-size-fits-all edict.

Secondly, the mere observation that an exchange rate is stable is not, by itself, proof of harmful intervention or of lost competitiveness.

To find the underlying cause of it, one has to examine the reserves, market liquidity, the composition of capital and current account flows, and whether monetary policy is achieving its objectives. On the face of these metrics, you begin to see where that stability is coming from.

A few critical facts should guide any assessment.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) publications show usable reserves comfortably above four months of import cover.

For example, the CBK weekly and monthly bulletins report reserves and comment that usable reserves were around $12.1 billion, which is over five months of import cover in October 2025. Adequate reserves are a key buffer that allows the central bank to ensure orderly markets and to cushion shocks.

Recent government arrangements to secure oil on 180-day credit terms from suppliers materially reduce immediate dollar demand for fuel imports, which historically has exerted pressure on the shilling.

Such supply-side arrangements relieve short-term import financing stress and therefore contribute to exchange-rate stability without implying artificial suppression of price discovery.

Market quotes in 2025 repeatedly show the shilling trading in a narrow band around Sh129-130 per dollar at times, with small day-to-day movement.

A narrow trading band is not evidence of suppression by itself – it reflects the supply/demand balance in the interbank market in that period.

Taken together, these facts suggest a mixture of adequate reserves, robust forex inflows (remittances and services revenues), credit arrangements for critical imports, and transparent CBK market operations plausibly explain the shilling’s stability. A stable exchange rate regime can be beneficial to the economy as a whole, presenting a win-win position.

Importers, exporters, and transporters can budget, price and hedge with more confidence when exchange-rate movements are moderate and predictable.

Frequent, large swings in the exchange rate are costly: they increase the need for expensive hedges, push up working capital requirements, and discourage long-term contracts. A stable shilling, therefore, reduces frictional costs for trade.

If the IMF’s message is that markets should be allowed to signal problems when they arise, that is a standard and fair point. If the IMF’s public statements imply that any period of low exchange-rate volatility is necessarily a problem, then that is an overreach that requires correction.

The public and market participants are best served when international institutions and local policymakers continue to publish the data that lets everyone judge for themselves.

Kenya imports a substantial share of its energy and intermediate goods.

Large currency depreciations translate into immediate increases in imported fuel and commodity costs that feed into domestic inflation. Stability supports the central bank’s inflation-targeting framework by limiting imported inflation shocks and making monetary policy more effective.

Financial institutions and corporates face lower costs for hedging and for cross-border settlement when currency volatility is low. That increases the economy’s operational efficiency and reduces marginal costs for firms that rely on imported inputs.

Investors, both domestic and foreign, prefer predictable operating environments. Exchange-rate stability reduces one source of macroeconomic uncertainty and improves the business climate.

These benefits are not abstract but tangible, measurable impacts on the cost of doing business and on macroeconomic stability.

Several plausible, benign explanations can account for the shilling’s limited movement.

Worker remittances, tourism revenues and services exports have strengthened Kenya’s external receipts in recent periods. When such inflows are sustained, they increase the supply of foreign exchange and dampen volatility.

The CBK’s published methodology for the exchange rates, which is a weighted average of registered trades, and frequent published bulletins improve price discovery.

The CBK may also conduct operations aimed at smoothing spikes that is an accepted practice in many emerging markets while leaving the market’s price-setting role intact.

The oil credit facilities and extended supplier credit terms reduce the immediate dollar demand for imports and therefore reduce pressure on the exchange rate. This is pragmatic import financing management.

Large usable reserves make it easier for the CBK to support orderly conditions during temporary shocks without making a long-term commitment to an official exchange-rate peg. The CBK’s weekly bulletins explicitly note that reserves remain adequate as alluded earlier in this article.

It is worth acknowledging where the IMF’s caution may have legitimate grounding.

If domestic policy is unsustainable, stability can be temporary and end in a disruptive depreciation later. The IMF’s caution is often framed as a preventive concern about long-term competitiveness.

Very tight management of the exchange rate can make it harder for monetary policy to control inflation or for the exchange rate to perform its shock-absorbing role.

These are sensible, technical points. However, the detail is in the data and the execution. Are reserves adequate? Is the stability supported by balanced flows and policy coherence? Is monetary policy achieving its inflation target? On those questions, the data point to a more favourable picture for Kenya.

For a country like Kenya, which is working to preserve macro stability while addressing debt sustainability, a constructive path would be to continue and deepen public reporting on Forex liquidity, usable reserves (and how they are calculated), composition of inflows (remittances, tourism, export receipts), and any exceptional operations the CBK conducts to smooth volatility.

The IMF and CBK should publish a joint technical note if the Fund’s staff have concerns about the transmission mechanism. This note should set out indicators, thresholds and recommended adjustments.

Kenya must continue to combine prudent fiscal consolidation with monetary discipline and structural reforms to enhance exports, widen the tax base and strengthen debt management. This will reduce the chance that ‘stability’ proves temporary.

From the evidence available in CBK releases and market reporting, the recent steadiness of the shilling appears to reflect a combination of adequate reserves, robust inflows, transparent market pricing practices and structural financing arrangements for key imports.

Those are not signs of policy failure. They are, instead, plausible reasons why the exchange rate can be relatively stable without impairing competitiveness or monetary policy.

This is not to say that Kenya cannot be complacent. Prudent fiscal management, ongoing transparency, and a clear dialogue with the IMF on indicators and thresholds are essential in ensuring that Kenya stays on course and sustains its forex markets stability.