Category: Business Daily

A powerful truth is revealed when a young global internet personality like IShowSpeed moves through African cities and villages, armed with nothing more than a mobile phone strapped to his wrist, commanding the attention of millions of Gen Alphas, Zoomers and Millennials worldwide.

From this simple act, it becomes clear that influence in the digital age no longer flows primarily through chancelleries, formal diplomatic communiqués or conference halls. It now moves through platforms, personalities, social media algorithms and real-time cultural connection, and global trade increasingly follows the same pattern.

Kenya, to be fair, knows something about digital transformation.

Over the past two decades, the country has built some of the strongest digital foundations on the continent, from world-leading mobile money adoption to digital public services such as eCitizen and the Huduma Centres.

These achievements have earned Kenya a deserved reputation as an African technology pioneer. Yet digital success at home does not automatically translate into influence abroad, and as global attention, power and competition migrate online, a critical dimension of statecraft remains underdeveloped: how Kenya projects, protects and advances its interests in the digital world.

Too often, when we go online, we rush to ‘sell Kenya’ as though it were a piece of real estate, the only thing missing being the price per acre. At best, we market rich Kenyan experiences, which score highly for tourism but far less for trade and industry.

This narrow framing limits our digital presence and fails to position Kenya as a serious player in global value chains driven by technology, data and innovation.

This is where digital diplomacy becomes essential: the deliberate use of diplomatic tools to shape international digital norms, attract strategic technology partnerships, safeguard cyberspace, and project national values and innovation as soft power.

Kenya’s digital future will therefore be shaped not only by fibre cables, innovation hubs and start-ups in counties, constituencies and wards, but also by diplomatic choices made in Brussels, Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Abuja, Cape Town, Addis Ababa and Geneva.

Global digital governance is being written now, largely by those who show up early, coordinated and prepared.

Digital infrastructure depends on international data regimes, cybersecurity relies on shared norms and cooperation, and digital trade rules are negotiated in bilateral and multilateral arenas.

In this environment, claims of non-alignment or neutrality amount to quiet surrender.

Other countries have grasped this reality. IShowSpeed’s Africa tour may seem an unlikely lens for foreign policy, but it captures the moment perfectly: attention, influence and legitimacy are increasingly earned online, in real time and at cultural scale.

The question is no longer whether Kenya should pursue digital diplomacy, but whether, in a rapidly reordering global system, it can afford not to.

In its rulings, the tribunal examined Del Monte Kenya’s dealings with related overseas entities, including Switzerland-based Del Monte International GmbH, which buys fresh and processed pineapples from Kenya for sale in Europe, and Del Monte Fund BV-the financial arm providing loans.

The tribunal agreed with the KRA that Del Monte International GmbH squeezed the revenues of the Kenya unit after the Swiss firm billed the Thika-based firm for quality control, logistics and sales and marketing, which were done by the Kenyan unit.

The tribunal also backed the taxman’s argument that the loan agreement between Delmonte Kenya and Del Monte Fund BV depressed profits of the Thika-based firm because it was costlier. The tax demand stems from two audits the KRA conducted on the multinational starting in Mid-2024 as the country clamps down on aggressive tax planning by global firms.

The first assessment, dated September 20, 2024, imposed a Sh1.76 billion liability for 2018.

The second, issued on March 17, 2025, demanded Sh4.959 billion for the 2019-2021 period, inclusive of principal tax, penalties, and interest.

In a ruling delivered on January 16, 2026, a five-member Tax Appeals Tribunal chaired by Christine Muga dismissed Del Monte’s appeal and upheld the two audit assessments, finding that most of the key functions were carried out by the Kenyan unit rather than Del Monte International GmbH.

As a result, the tribunal ruled that the bulk of the profits should have been taxed in Kenya.

The KRA had also disallowed interest expenses on a loan advanced by Del Monte Fund BV, noting that the entity was not an independent financier.

‘The upshot of the foregoing is that the tribunal finds and holds that the appeal fails and it proceeds to make the following orders. the appeal be and is hereby dismissed,’ the tribunal said.

Del Monte International GmbH serves as the group’s international trading and distribution hub, coordinating global sales and marketing for Fresh Del Monte Produce, while the Dutch-registered Del Monte Fund BV functions as the group’s financial arm, handling intercompany funding.

At the apex of this global corporate network is Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., the parent company that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a jurisdiction widely regarded as a tax haven.

In its argument, Del Monte Kenya told the tribunal that its Functions Performed, Assets Employed, and Risks Assumed (FAR analysis)-a method for examining how value is created within a global corporate group-showed that DMI GmbH actually carried out most of the high-value functions, such as quality control, logistics, and sales, which reduced the revenue of the Kenyan entity.

The tax authority rejected the FAR analysis due to insufficient evidence that the functions were genuinely performed by the Swiss subsidiary.

The Tax Appeals Tribunal found that the Thika-based fruit processor sold fresh and processed pineapples to a sister company abroad at prices that did not reflect the value created in Kenya and claimed interest deductions from a loan deal that favoured its parent firm.

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) said deals shrank the income for Del Monte Kenya, resulting in reduced income tax collection.

The tribunal agreed with the KRA that Del Monte International GmbH squeezed the revenues of the Kenya unit after the Swiss firm billed the Thika-based firm for quality control, logistics and sales and marketing, which were done by the Kenyan unit.

The tribunal also backed the taxman’s argument that the loan agreement between Delmonte Kenya and Del Monte Fund BV depressed profits of the Thika-based firm because it was costlier. The tax demand stems from two audits the KRA conducted on the multinational starting in Mid-2024 as the country clamps down on aggressive tax planning by global firms.

The first assessment, dated September 20, 2024, imposed a Sh1.76 billion liability for 2018.

The second, issued on March 17, 2025, demanded Sh4.959 billion for the 2019-2021 period, inclusive of principal tax, penalties, and interest.

In a ruling delivered on January 16, 2026, a five-member Tax Appeals Tribunal chaired by Christine Muga dismissed Del Monte’s appeal and upheld the two audit assessments, finding that most of the key functions were carried out by the Kenyan unit rather than Del Monte International GmbH.

As a result, the tribunal ruled that the bulk of the profits should have been taxed in Kenya.

The KRA had also disallowed interest expenses on a loan advanced by Del Monte Fund BV, noting that the entity was not an independent financier.

‘The upshot of the foregoing is that the tribunal finds and holds that the appeal fails and it proceeds to make the following orders. the appeal be and is hereby dismissed,’ the tribunal said.

Del Monte International GmbH serves as the group’s international trading and distribution hub, coordinating global sales and marketing for Fresh Del Monte Produce, while the Dutch-registered Del Monte Fund BV functions as the group’s financial arm, handling intercompany funding.

At the apex of this global corporate network is Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., the parent company that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a jurisdiction widely regarded as a tax haven.

In its argument, Del Monte Kenya told the tribunal that its Functions Performed, Assets Employed, and Risks Assumed (FAR analysis)-a method for examining how value is created within a global corporate group-showed that DMI GmbH actually carried out most of the high-value functions, such as quality control, logistics, and sales, which reduced the revenue of the Kenyan entity.

The tax authority rejected the FAR analysis due to insufficient evidence that the functions were genuinely performed by the Swiss subsidiary.

The KRA insisted that DMF BV was wholly owned by DMI GmbH, which had not paid Del Monte Kenya more money for the supplies of pineapple and fruit juice than the loan it gave to the Kenyan subsidiary.

‘This raised a concern on the rationality of the commercial arrangement,’ said the tribunal.

The tribunal found that Del Monte Kenya suppressed profits by charging only a 4.83 percent mark-up on sales to its Swiss counterpart, Del Monte International GmbH. It noted that the Kenyan subsidiary handled nearly all operations, from farming pineapples and processing juice to managing essential functions like quality control, logistics, sales, and customer relations, siding with the KRA’s assessment.

The decisions come amid a government drive to rein in tax avoidance by multinationals, particularly profit shifting through transfer pricing structures that move income to lower-tax jurisdictions despite the underlying economic activity taking place in Kenya. Transfer pricing is about how much companies charge each other when they are part of the same group.

Multinational companies operate in many countries but want to pay the least tax possible overall. Because they trade with themselves across borders, they can influence where profits appear by adjusting internal prices.

The KRA requires companies to develop transfer pricing policies that price related-party transactions as they would between independent firms, a principle known as arm’s length, and one intended to prevent profits from being shifted out of Kenya to low-tax jurisdictions.

The rulings form part of a broader push by the government to curb tax avoidance by multinational firms, particularly schemes that involve shifting profits out of Kenya through manipulated transfer pricing arrangements, where income is booked in lower-tax jurisdictions despite value being created locally.

The measures are aimed at preventing multinationals from understating profits earned in Kenya by selling goods cheaply to offshore affiliates or loading local entities with inflated costs. By tightening rules around intra-group sales, services and financing, the government is seeking to ensure profits are taxed where real economic activity takes place.

In the Finance Act 2025, the government introduced Advance Pricing Agreement (APA) framework, allowing companies and the KRA to agree in advance on transfer pricing methods for complex related-party transactions.

Kenya has also expanded country-by-country reporting requirements, giving tax authorities visibility into where multinational groups generate profits and pay taxes globally.

In addition, proposals such as the minimum top-up tax-aligned with global anti-BEPS standards-are designed to discourage shifting income to low-tax jurisdictions. Collectively, these measures signal Kenya’s intent to align with international best practice and close loopholes used to erode the domestic tax base.

Walk into many offices in Nairobi, Mombasa or Kisumu today and you are likely to sense a quiet heaviness. Employees are present, chasing targets and sitting through meetings, yet a subtle fatigue hangs in the air.

They are working, but many are struggling. The strain is not loud. It shows up in tired eyes, short tempers, slower creativity and the occasional resignation letter framed as ‘seeking growth opportunities.’

This is a workforce dealing with the rising cost of living while carrying family responsibilities that have grown heavier over the last six years. Food prices, house, rent and transport have risen, taking a larger share of salaries. School fees and medical expenses drain savings.

In a (2023) Cigna Healthcare 360° Global Well-Being Survey Kenya report, Kenya scored 60.6 out of 100 on the well-being index, compared to the global average of 62.9.

Alarmingly, 95 percent of respondents in Kenya reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, and 93 percent acknowledged high levels of stress. A separate survey by the Institute of Human Resources (Kenya) found that 62 percent of professionals in Nairobi felt overwhelmed by work.

Amidst these findings the workplace is still expected to run at a set desired pace. A mid-level professional in a local logistics company offered what many feel, ‘the office needs focus and drive. Home needs support and money.

I am doing both, but I am constantly broke.’

Managers may notice reduced enthusiasm, quieter meetings, lower initiative or dips in productivity. The risk is misinterpreting this as disengagement or poor attitude. In reality, many employees are experiencing what psychologists call functional burnout, the ability to keep performing, but without emotional reserves. People don’t break, but simply fade.

Employers risk treating a well-being issue as a performance issue, and in doing so, they risk losing good people.

The leadership challenge is not just financial. Costs of operations are rising, competition is tightening, and organisational survival demands caution. This calls for staff motivation and support beyond the pay, and an organisational culture shift.

How are companies responding? Some are examining how work is structured and how people are led, not how work is managed. Some have reviewed workloads to eliminate duplicated reporting, unnecessary approvals and ‘busy work’ that drains time without adding value.

Others have begun training supervisors in soft and people management, recognising that technical skills alone don’t create a great leaders.

Changing workings hours from a rigid 8 to 5 schedules to staggered reporting hours in selected departments will allow employees to manage commuting time, caregiving and rest. Within months, companies are likely to note a rise in customer service scores, a drop in sick off days, and absenteeism. The organisations will not have solved employees personal problems, but avoided adding to them, because, people do not need the workplace to solve all their problems. They need the workplace not to add to them.

Support can also take the form of re-designing workload and expectations. Many supervisors are technically competent but lack people management skills.

Short, targeted training in emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, feedback and coaching can shift the workplace environment. This matters because a workforce under strain can slowdown company growth.

In a regional study by mHub Africa, over 80 percent of East African employees reported moderate to extreme stress in 2023, with 48 percent saying stress had reduced their productivity and 51.6 percent citing difficulty concentrating.

That kind of decline, if mirrored in Kenya’s major sectors like banking, manufacturing or healthcare, translates into real costs, like lower output, more errors, pilferage, longer delivery times, weakened customer loyalty and higher health-related absenteeism and costs.

And behind these trends are human stories. A nurse working double shifts to make ends meet and pay college fees. A junior accountant planning for rent, school fees and medical bills for ageing parents, or struggling with gambling and alcohol addiction.

A young professional repaying a student loan while supporting younger relatives. A manager outwardly composed but privately struggling to meet family needs, and maintain an ego. These are not isolated cases. They are the lived reality of many Kenyan workers.

Those that overlook the quiet strain may find themselves managing excess staff turnover, low staff productivity, absenteeism, rise in misconduct cases, or pilferage, high court of equipment maintenance.

On a positive note, the workforce is still showing up. The challenge facing leadership today is how to adjust and effectively responds to these changes that affect employee well-being and organisational performance.

Company leadership and HR Managers collaboration with mental health professionals is critical in sensitising employees on mental health, and developing employee assistance programmes at workplaces.

About a quarter of workers in 26 counties could be non-existent, special audits on payrolls have revealed, raising concerns of possible fraud that may have cost taxpayers billions of shillings.

This follows the inability of public auditors to trace 25.3 percent of workers sampled to verify their existence, despite several attempts to reach the 596 employees who were paid Sh978 million over just three years.

In separate audits of counties’ payroll management, Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu sampled 2,354 workers from payrolls and asked county governments to present them for physical verification. Of these, 596 did not turn up.

The failure by more than a quarter of the sampled employees to physically present themselves left auditors unable to verify whether they were genuine staff or ghost workers, sounding the alarm that Sh978 million paid to them as salaries over three years to June 2024 could have been lost.

An extrapolation of the data based on the counties’ overall wage bill shows they could have paid as much as Sh33.5 billion to non-existent staff in the 2024/25 fiscal year alone, if the audit findings cut across their total workforce.

The Controller of Budget (CoB) reported that in the year ending June 2025, the 26 counties spent Sh132.2 billion on salaries.

Machakos ghost workers

Questioning the authenticity of county payrolls, the Auditor-General revealed that Machakos County had the highest number of suspected ghost workers, with more than half of employees summoned by auditors failing to appear.

‘The Special Audit requested 44 employees from the County Executive to present themselves for physical verification. However, 23 employees did not avail themselves for the exercise, despite multiple attempts to reach out to them,’ Ms Gathungu said of the Machakos County audit.

‘During the period under review, the 23 employees collectively received a gross salary amounting to Sh75,765,585. These employees may not exist, presenting the risk of irregular or fraudulent payments.’

Machakos, however, is just one of several counties facing the problem of suspected ghost workers, where employees appear on payrolls and draw salaries but do not report to work.

In Mandera and Kajiado counties, for instance, more than 49 percent of employees sampled from payrolls to verify their authenticity were no-shows.

Auditors sampled 189 workers in the Kajiado County Executive, out of whom 94 did not turn up. The employees who failed to appear pocketed Sh82.7 million in salaries over the three-year period, the public auditor said.

In Mandera County, 49 out of the 99 workers sampled for verification also failed to appear, raising concerns over the prudence of Sh112 million paid to them in salaries over three years.

The Auditor-General made the requests to verify the authenticity of staff on county payrolls between December 2024 and February last year.

She said that 30.3 percent of sampled workers in Nairobi County could not be traced, as was the case for 33.7 percent in Samburu County, 38.2 percent in Nandi County, and 28 percent each in Mombasa and Kakamega counties.

‘The letter requested 89 employees to present themselves for physical verification. However, 27 employees did not present themselves, despite multiple attempts to reach out to them. During the period under review, the 27 officers collectively received a gross salary amounting to Sh47,552,597,’ she said of the Nairobi County audit.

In Kiambu County, the public auditor was unable to trace 21 out of a sample of 106 staff for verification of their existence, although the 21 pocketed Sh67.8 million in salaries over three years.

A total of 596 employees who failed to prove their existence pocketed Sh978 million in salaries between July 2021 and June 2024, representing an average monthly salary of Sh45,582 per worker over the three years.

Higher salaries

Among the unverified workers, those in Baringo County pocketed the highest monthly salaries, averaging Sh130,143 each and totalling Sh23.4 million for the five employees involved.

The 34 workers in Nandi County were also paid an average of Sh109,515 monthly over the three years, while the three untraced workers in Isiolo County pocketed an average of Sh102,303 per month.

The public auditor said the failure by employees to appear for physical verification casts doubt on the authenticity of payroll records, raising the risk of irregular or fraudulent payments, ‘including paying salaries to staff who do not offer services to the County Executive.’

The findings come amid further revelations that 41 counties hired 27,284 workers over the three years, with auditors raising alarm over the lack of recruitment plans and budgets during the hiring spree, exposing counties to the risk of overstaffing.

County governments had a combined workforce of 226,500 employees by 2024, according to the latest Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) data.

The SRC reported that counties’ wage bill hit Sh215.08 billion in the year ending June 2024, after growing by Sh12.88 billion from the previous year.

The public auditor also revealed several instances where employee records held by Chief Officers differed from those in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Database (IPPD), exposing possible cases of ghost workers.

‘Comparison of the staff lists countersigned by various Chief Officers with staff registers from the IPPD system established that there were 177 employees who appeared in the Chief Officers’ lists but not in the IPPD. Further, 460 employees were in IPPD but not in the lists provided by Chief Officers, and collectively received Sh205,106,394.80 in earnings in 2023/24,’ Ms Gathungu said.

The Auditor-General also faulted the use of manual payrolls across several counties to process salaries, noting that the system is vulnerable to manipulation and fraud, ‘potentially resulting in unauthorised payments and disbursements to unverified personnel.’

Several counties processed salaries worth hundreds of millions of shillings using manual payrolls during the three years under review, the special audit established.

The High Court has rejected an application to suspend contempt of court proceedings against officials of Zakhem International Construction Limited for failing to pay a Sh460 million debt.

The company had argued that it was facing parallel legal proceedings from Azicon Kenya Limited, arising from the same dispute.

According to the Lebanese firm, maintaining the contempt of court case concurrently with the liquidation petition constitutes multiplicity of proceedings aimed at recovering the same debt.

This amounts to gross abuse of the the court proceedings, the firm’s director Ibrahim Zakhem said.

The court, however, noted that the application was made without seeking permission to file the matter during recess as required by vacation rules.

‘In any event, the application for stay of proceedings arising out of liquidation ought to be made in the insolvency court and not the present court,’ said the court.

The court directed that the matter be mentioned on February 24, 2026, for directions.

Azicon Kenya said in the application that there was evidence that Zakhem International was paid by Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) but had refused to settle its debts even after being served with a court order.

‘The open contempt of court decree herein warrants the arrest and committing the directors of the Defendant to civil jail in the event that they continue to disregard the decree in contempt of court,’ Azicon said in the application.

Zakhen International Construction argued that it was extremely prejudicial to be subjected to the double jeopardy of simultaneous recovery actions in respect of the same debt.

Azicon was among the companies subcontracted by Zakhem International Construction for the replacement of the 450-kilometre Nairobi-Mombasa pipeline in 2018.

Azicon Kenya Ltd said it was subcontracted by Zakhem International for electrical, instrumentation, and telecommunication installation works.

The construction firm said that by commencing the liquidation petition, Azicon had elected the insolvency proceedings as its preferred mechanism for recovering the money.

‘The simultaneous prosecution of the instant execution proceedings alongside the pending insolvency petition gives rise to a multiplicity of proceedings pursuing the same objective or recovery of the same decretal debt from the judgment debtor,’ Ibrahim Zakhem, a director of the company.

The Kenyan firm said the contract was for $10,137,424 (about Sh1.3 billion) and Zakhem only paid about 840 million, leaving a balance of $3,560,857 (about Sh537.3 million).

The Kenyan firm said in the insolvency proceedings that Zakhem International was busy scheming and deliberately avoiding paying the debt by incorporating new companies to hide its money and assets.

Kenya is often celebrated as a regional leader in digital innovation. From mobile money to online tax systems, technology has reshaped how citizens and businesses interact with the state.

However, when it comes to financial reporting and regulatory oversight, much of the system still relies on static documents, spreadsheets and PDFs that are costly to produce, hard to analyse and easy to manipulate.

While policymakers grapple with persistent challenges around tax leakage, weak compliance and limited regulatory capacity, digital technology presents one opportunity they can leverage.

An opportunity lies in combining the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) with emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

At its core, XBRL is a standardised, machine-readable way of preparing and submitting financial information. Instead of numbers being buried in lengthy reports, XBRL tags each figure so it can be automatically analysed, compared and verified.

The emergence of AI technology on the other hand presents an opportunity to augment XBRL when paired with AI-driven analytics.

Think of XBRL as the language of financial data, and AI as the intelligence that interprets it at scale. Together, these technologies can allow regulators to move from reactive, manual review of reports to proactive, data-driven supervision.

These technologies can assist with flagging unusual deals quickly, detect inconsistencies across filings and identify emerging risks long before they crystallise into scandals or systemic failures.

If properly implemented, AI-enabled XBRL reporting can help to meet regulatory compliance and significantly cut the cost of financial reporting. It can weed out down repetitive data entry, shorten reporting cycles and eliminate human error.

Over time, companies and organisations would spend less time and money correcting mistakes and responding to regulatory queries, thus freeing up resources for productive activities. This can also be especially helpful for SMEs, which often bear a disproportionate compliance burden.

For regulators and policymakers, such as the Capital Markets Authority and the Central Bank of Kenya, which currently receive large volumes of reports that are difficult to analyse quickly or consistently.

With XBRL-based submissions, these regulators can access clean, comparable data across firms and sectors. AI tools can also be deployed to monitor trends, stress-test institutions and support evidence-based policymaking.

The tax system stands to benefit as well, since emerging evidence shows that when financial data is standardised and machine-readable, tax authorities are better equipped to track liabilities and close compliance gaps.

For the Kenya Revenue Authority, integrating XBRL-aligned financial data with AI analytics could strengthen audit selection, reduce evasion and widen the tax base without increasing tax rates. Rather than relying on blanket enforcement, resources can be targeted where risks are highest.

Globally, regulators in the United States, Europe and India have adopted XBRL and are increasingly layering advanced analytics on top of reported data. Closer home, South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission mandated XBRL reporting in 2018.

While firms initially fretted about cost and complexity, many now report lower reporting burdens and smoother regulatory engagement.

For Kenya, implementation of iTax and eTIMS shows that large-scale digital reforms are possible when policy intent is clear and thus the country would not be starting from scratch.

The rollout of iTax and eTIMS shows that large-scale digital reforms are possible when policy intent is clear. The next step is to move beyond digitising forms into building intelligent reporting ecosystems. This could take the form of a phased approach that begins with listed companies and large institutions to refine the infrastructure and slowly expand to other sectors.

Professional bodies such as ICPAK would also have a critical role to play by training accountants and auditors in data-driven reporting and analytics.

In the public sector, the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board can align XBRL templates with IPSAS requirements, particularly for state-owned enterprises, where transparency and accountability concerns are most acute.

Kenya is once again at the threshold of a new wave of mega projects-spanning transport corridors, energy systems, urban infrastructure, and complex public-private partnerships (PPP). The scale and ambition are unmistakable, and so too is the expectation that these investments will accelerate growth, create jobs, and reposition the country competitively within the region.

Yet experience shows that the success or failure of large infrastructure programmes is rarely determined by capital availability alone. It is shaped much earlier, and far more quietly, by the quality of upstream governance: how projects are prepared, how costs are tested, how risks are identified and allocated, and how long-term fiscal exposure is understood before commitments become irreversible.

As Kenya moves faster to mobilise capital, governance must move with equal speed-not as a constraint, but as a safeguard for value-for-money, credibility, and long-term economic resilience.

This reality was underscored at the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, where global investors repeatedly emphasised that capital today is mobile but increasingly selective.

What attracts long-term investment is not ambition alone, but credible project pipelines-those backed by robust feasibility work, realistic cost assumptions, transparent risk allocation, and a clear understanding of contingent liabilities. These expectations are not tested at conferences, but project by project, contract by contract, long before financial close.

As multilateral institutions have long emphasised, ‘good infrastructure is not just about spending more, but about spending better.’

One persistent source of value erosion lies in the quality of Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) cost estimates. In many cases, costs are not developed from first principles. Instead, averages from previous projects-often already inefficient-are escalated for inflation and foreign exchange movements.

This practice quietly carries forward embedded inefficiencies, meaning that projects can be over-priced before the first tender is issued. As successive layers of scope additions, risk premiums, and financing costs are added, weak cost foundations almost guarantee overruns or, in the case of PPPs, higher user-pay charges.

Implementation further compounds these challenges. Delays, coordination failures, and scope changes across the project lifecycle translate into time overruns, cost escalation, and deferred economic benefits.

Even where assets are eventually delivered, the opportunity cost of delayed or underperforming infrastructure can be substantial.

PPPs, in particular, demand advanced governance capacity. Value for money in PPPs depends fundamentally on how risks are identified, priced, and allocated. Where public sector teams face gaps in specialised expertise-especially in detailed risk mapping, probability assessment, and project finance-information asymmetry can emerge between the public and private sides of a transaction.

This may result in sub-optimal risk transfer, mispriced guarantees, or poorly understood contingent liabilities that surface years later through renegotiations or fiscal exposure.

Efficient risk allocation is not about transferring all risks to the private sector. It is about allocating each risk to the party best able to manage it.

Achieving this consistently requires disciplined appraisal, technical depth, and the ability to challenge assumptions early-particularly when delivery timelines are compressed.

Countries that have successfully leveraged infrastructure for long-term growth have recognised these challenges and responded institutionally. Independent technical review mechanisms stress-test assumptions, interrogate cost foundations, and assess fiscal exposure before projects proceed to procurement or financial close.

Their purpose is not to slow delivery, but to improve outcomes while adjustments are still feasible and relatively inexpensive.

This distinction matters because infrastructure credibility is ultimately tested in capital markets.

As global investors and institutional leaders emphasised at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, capital tends to flow where governance is strong, transparent and predictable. For countries seeking long-term, patient investment, governance quality is not an abstract principle-it is a competitive advantage.

Kenya’s infrastructure ambitions are both necessary and timely. But ambition alone does not deliver lasting value.

As the country accelerates investment, the most consequential decisions will be those that strengthen governance systems early-before projects become irreversible. When capital moves fast, governance must move faster.

In today’s environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), combined with rapid change, the insurance industry stands at the frontline of managing risk while simultaneously navigating its own.

From digital disruption and regulatory shifts to the growing impact of climate change, insurance projects face unprecedented challenges. Resilience has therefore emerged not merely as a desirable trait, but as a defining capability that determines whether projects merely survive or sustainably thrive.

As PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) notes, resilience in insurance projects goes beyond traditional risk management. It involves embedding adaptability, foresight and agility into every stage of project planning and execution.

This shift in perspective recognises that risk is no longer an occasional disruption but a constant feature of the operating environment. Resilience, in this context, becomes a strategic advantage rather than a defensive posture.

Patience Muvea, Chief Actuary at Liberty Kenya, captured this thinking succinctly when she observed at a professional forum that ‘resilience is not about avoiding risks; it’s about having the capacity to absorb shocks, learn from disruption, and emerge stronger.’

This mindset underscores the importance of proactive risk identification and scenario planning.

As KPMG highlights in its work on emerging risks in the global insurance sector, resilient projects anticipate uncertainty by developing multiple ‘what-if’ scenarios that test responses to regulatory changes, technological failures or market shocks.

In practice, agility is a core competence that strengthens resilience in insurance projects. Agile methodologies allow teams to break large initiatives into manageable components, test assumptions continuously and adapt strategies in real time.

This is particularly important in a heavily regulated industry, where innovation must be balanced with compliance and governance. A well-calibrated balance between structure and flexibility enables insurers to innovate responsibly without compromising oversight.

Resilient projects also depend on strong communication frameworks and engaged stakeholders. Transparent communication, through regular updates, clear milestones and shared expectations, keeps teams aligned amid change.

Kenya’s external debt average time to maturity and grace period shortened as the country saw a reduction in the share of bilateral loans that feature longer breathing room and repayment duration.

New data from the Treasury shows the average maturity of new external debt shortened to 15.6 years in the year to June 2025 from 20.5 years a year earlier.

The grace period-the time before debt service starts-meanwhile fell to 3.7 years from 4.4 years.

The average interest rate for new external debt, however, dropped to 4.3 percent from 4.6 percent previously, resulting in a lower debt service burden amid a stable shilling. The external loans are typically denominated in hard currencies such as the United States dollar and euro.

The trend shows Kenya will have a shorter time to repay contracted foreign debt while having less breathing room to the start of interest payments.

‘The average maturity of new external debt shortened to 15.6 years at the end of June 2025, down from 20.5 years in June 2024,’ the Treasury said.

‘Over the same period, the weighted average interest rate declined from 4.6 percent to 4.3 percent, while the average grace period eased slightly to 3.7 years from 4.4 years.”

The average maturity for new external debt is the lowest since June 2019 while the grace period is the shortest since at least 2017.

The grace period is usually mostly contained in official bilateral and multilateral loans from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

During the period under review, outstanding bilateral debt fell by Sh51 billion to Sh1.11 trillion in June 2025 from Sh1.16 trillion a year earlier.

At the same time, multilateral and commercial debt surged by Sh259 billion and Sh105 billion, respectively.

Total multilateral debt topped Sh3.04 trillion from Sh2.78 trillion, while commercial debt rose to Sh1.31 trillion from Sh1.2 trillion.

Combined, total external debt climbed to Sh5.48 trillion in June 2025 from Sh5.17 trillion previously.

Treasury has been focusing on operations to smoothen the debt maturity profile by spreading repayment obligations over a longer horizon and easing near-term refinancing pressures even as new debt sustainability metrics come under pressure.

In February last year, the Treasury issued a new Sh193.5 billion ($1.5 billion) Eurobond maturing in 2036 and used part of the proceeds to repurchase Sh74.7 billion ($579 million) of the Sh116.1 billion ($900 million) Eurobond due next year.

Last year, Kenya also extended the term of three Chinese loans used for the construction of the standard gauge railway (SGR) from 2029 to 2040.

Treasury said it had negotiated new terms that turned the loans into a 15-year-old facility that includes a five-year grace period.

The extension is part of a conversion of three dollar-denominated loans into yuan, a move estimated to save Kenya about Sh27.7 billion ($215 million) a year in interest payments.

Treasury is betting on a variety of strategies to manage external debt with the primary goal of easing refinancing pressures, which involves both the extension of loan tenor and the push for lower interest rates. It has also issued new public debt management initiatives to contain the growing debt burden.

‘The reforms include the review of the debt and borrowing policy to bring on board new developments in debt management such as derivatives, liability management operations and associated instruments such as swaps, forwards and options and associated risks,’ the Treasury stated.

A legal dispute has stalled the planned transfer of management of Amboseli National Park from the national government to the Kajiado County administration, amid claims that the move violates the Constitution and endangers a key national asset.

The petition, filed by Joseph Kasau Masaa against Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, Kajiado County, and other state agencies, argued that the transfer was rushed, unlawful, and threatened a nationally protected asset held in trust by the state.

The High Court dismissed an attempt by Cabinet Secretary and the Attorney General to strike out the case and instead issued conservatory orders freezing the gazetted handover pending a full hearing.

The court ruled that the dispute raised constitutional questions that could not be dismissed at a preliminary stage.

‘It is not the mere mention of land or environment that ousts the jurisdiction of the High Court,’ the court said while sitting at the Constitutional and Human Rights Division.

Central to the dispute are two Gazette Notices issued in October 2025 and a deed of transfer that sought to shift the park management to Kajiado.

Under the agreement, the county was expected to manage the park while the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) still holds the title. Revenue would be collected via the e-Citizen platform, with a 50/50 split between national and county governments.

The Amboseli Ecosystem Conservation Authority (AECA), a semi-autonomous management authority, is set to take over the management of Amboseli National Reserve once it is transferred back to Kajiado County government.

The county government anticipated millions of shillings in annual revenues, since KWS rakes in at least Sh1.5 billion every year from park collections and related tourism activities.

However, the petitioner contends that Amboseli is public land under Article 62 of the Constitution and that national parks fall under exclusive national government control.

He argued before the court that wildlife and national park management is a national function under the Fourth Schedule and cannot be devolved through executive agreements or gazette notices without parliamentary approval.

The petition further alleges that the National Land Commission was excluded from the process despite its constitutional mandate over public land.

‘The transfer effectively converts a national park into community land without parliamentary sanction, undermining the doctrine of public trust and equitable sharing of resources,’ the petitioner stated.

The court agreed that the alleged omission raised serious legal questions warranting a full trial.

Additionally, the petitioner argued that the transfer undermines environmental protection, the doctrine of public trust, and Kenya’s national and international conservation obligations.

‘The transfer effectively downgrades a national park to a county-managed reserve without compliance with statutory safeguards under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, exposing a globally significant ecosystem to irreversible harm,’ he said.

The government and Kajiado County defended the transfer as lawful, stating that it aimed to address historical injustices faced by the Maasai community and enhance local participation in conservation. They maintained that only management functions, not ownership, were being transferred.

However, Justice Mwamuye ruled that these arguments could not override constitutional safeguards at an interim stage. ‘Statutory mechanisms cannot shield allegedly unconstitutional executive action,’ the judge stated.

The petitioner warned that assigning park revenues to a single county would undermine equitable sharing of national resources and risk irreversible harm to the ecosystem if governance standards weaken.

In granting conservatory orders, the court emphasised that public interest required maintaining the status quo.

‘Keeping the park under existing management causes no prejudice, whereas proceeding with the transfer risks irreversible constitutional harm,’ the ruling stated.

The case will be mentioned on February 4, 2026.

The national government in 2005 proclaimed the transfer of Amboseli back to Kajiado County as provided for in Article 187 of the Constitution. The proclamation was however not acted on until 2004 when President William Ruto ordered its implementation.