Category: Business Daily

The government has been ordered to rehire a former finance director of the National Social Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), whose job was affected by restructuring at the medical insurer in October 2025.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court directed the Social Health Authority (SHA) to facilitate the redeployment of Robert Ingasira to other roles within the Public Service Commission (PSC), without loss of his benefits until the expiry of his term.

Mr Ingasira was competitively recruited as director of financial services by the defunct NHIF in October 2023 for a fixed term of five years. His services were, however, terminated when NHIF transitioned to SHA.

‘An order that the respondent (SHA) do facilitate redeployment of the petitioner to the wider public service with effect from the date of termination without loss of benefits until the end of his contract or as determined by the PSC, whichever is greater,’ said the court.

The court further directed SHA to pay Mr Ingasira Sh3 million in damages for breach of his constitutional rights.

The court noted that after the six-month transition period, there was an option to redeploy Mr Ingasira until the completion of his contract, but his request was declined.

Mr Ingasira submitted that during his tenure, he consistently met or exceeded the performance targets set for his role, contributing significantly to the insurer’s operations and growth.

He said his appointment arose during the transition from NHIF, whose transitional provisions required that staff be considered for absorption, redeployment or appointment in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner.

He contended that staff of the defunct NHIF were temporarily deployed to SHA on their existing terms with effect from November 22, 2024, for a period of six months or until the lapse of their respective contracts, whichever came first.

Mr Ingasira said the transitional provisions expressly contemplated that staff not absorbed into SHA would be redeployed within the public service. However, no reasons or explanation were given for his non-shortlisting and non-absorption.

He submitted that he remained in active employment as his contract was never revoked, and that he continued to receive his salary for September and October 2025.

Later, he was informed that his contract had lapsed on October 31, 2025, a date he said was irregularly and unlawfully backdated, as no prior communication had been issued and he remained in active service.

The chief executive officer of SHA, Mercy Mwangangi, opposed the case, saying it was an afterthought and premised on a fundamental misapprehension of his employment status.

Dr Mwangangi added that following the repeal of the National Health Insurance Fund Act, Mr Ingasira did not automatically become an employee of SHA.

The CEO said Mr Ingasira was not shortlisted for the position he applied for and that he had been given the reasons.

SHA argued that his continued presence after the official conclusion of his secondment was a matter of transitional courtesy, intended to facilitate orderly handover and operational continuity, rather than an affirmation of any contractual right.

In just five years, Eliud Choge, an IT auditor and his wife Eunice have relocated across the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, California, and now Canada, showcasing the realities of expatriate careers. It has been a journey of financial trade-offs, the strain of constant resettlement and bringing a career spouse along, and the balancing act between professional ambition and family life.

In 2021, Eliud got a job offer from KPMG to work in the Cayman Islands.

‘It was exciting,’ says the 31-year-old, ‘the prospect of working abroad and taking my first ever flight was super exciting. I had never even been on a local flight. ‘

By the time the Cayman Islands application landed in his inbox, he had years of solid IT audit experience under his belt. After graduating with a master’s degree in IT Management, he worked at PKF Kenya, PwC, and Safaricom Sacco, but never out of the country.

Stepping off the plane, he noticed how small the country was. The population is about 90,000 people, which Eliud compares to a single constituency in Kenya. ‘It is one of the world’s most famous offshore banking destinations, a tax haven where corporations, billionaires, and the financial professionals who manage their money all converge on a tiny strip of island in the Caribbean Sea. Crazy, right?’ he tells BDLife.

Starting a job in a foreign country can feel overwhelming, but Eliud says what helped was KPMG’s ‘buddy system,’ where one is assigned a colleague to pick you up from the airport. He was housed in a hotel for two weeks, given a rental car, and paid relocation fees of Sh646,000.

But it was his church community that truly made him feel at home. The first Saturday he arrived in the Cayman Islands, Eliud walked 20 minutes to a Seventh-day Adventist Church. By the end of the service, a church elder who was also a bank CEO offered him a ride in his Mercedes-Benz. Weeks later, a church member helped him get a rental car.

‘This is a story that has replicated in the different countries I have gone to,’ he says. ‘For me, the church has really helped me find a community.’

Finding a good house is another hurdle for expatriates. In the Cayman Islands, Eliud says he opted to share a house with a Kenyan colleague. ‘We were paying Sh388,000 rent per month for the two-bedroom house with a shared living room and kitchen. I’d eat out most of the time because groceries are pricey, they are imported from as far as Ecuador and Venezuela.’

But there was one thing that made the cost of living bearable. In the Cayman Islands, there is no income tax. Whatever a person earns is theirs to keep.

‘Imagine your gross income is your net income,’ Eliud says.

Moving a spouse

For many expatriates, the toughest part of relocation is the logistics of moving a spouse. Most leave them in Kenya and visit, but Eliud choose otherwise. When he left, Eunice Mokeira, his now-wife was working as a medical officer at Tenwek Mission Hospital. They were dating and once he settled he started working on inviting her to Cayman. But he got a transfer letter to work in KPMG in the United Kingdom. Luckily, just before he moved to the UK, Ernst and Young gave him a job in the Bahamas.

‘They were building a new IT audit team and wanted me,’ he says.

He weighed the two locations: London or Nassau.

‘Bahamas and the Cayman Islands offer better financial packages than the UK, and it would have been easier for Eunice to practice medicine in the Bahamas,’ he says.

In November 2022, Eliud moved to Nassau, his new workplace. In June 2023, he came back to Kenya and married Eunice.

Getting to the Bahamas for the couple was smoother than they expected. Kenyans do not need a visa to enter the Bahamas, but they do need one to transit through the UK. Eunice applied for a UK visitor’s visa, which came through in about two weeks.

Her first impression of Nassau was surreal. ‘I was amazed,’ Eunice says. ‘The beaches were very clear. It was really beautiful,’ she says.

Settling in Bahamas

Just like the KPMG move, Ernst and Young paid Eliud a relocation package of about Sh387,000 and covered other additional costs.

Again, the SDA church community in the Bahamas helped them settle in. A pastor rented to them his late father’s house and the pastor’s wife sold them a Nissan March at an affordable price.

‘Compared to Cayman, Bahamians are much warmer,’ Eliud says. ‘You would be crossing the road, and someone would say, ‘Morning. At first, I was not too sure if they were greeting me or talking on the phone.’

Food in the Bahamas was also different and more accessible, from Johnny cake bread soaked in thick fish soup, plantain fried golden in a pan to the famous peas and rice dish, which Eliud loves.

‘The Jamaicans call it peas and rice. Trinidadians call it rice and peas,’ Eliud says, laughing. ‘But they are all wrong because it is not even peas, it is beans.’

Eunice started working at a private clinic in late 2023, but she was not happy. She preferred a residency programme, yet the Bahamas had limited vacancies.

In August 2024, Eliud got a transfer to Ernst and Young’s San Jose office in California, the US. The relocation package was the most generous support he had received since Eliud started moving jobs.

Then came an unexpected twist. Just as they settled in California, Eunice received a job offer from Princess Margaret Hospital, the main public hospital in the Bahamas. It was exactly the kind of hands-on clinical experience she had wanted. She travelled back to the Bahamas and worked for eight months.

‘I loved the fact that I’d still go back to the Bahamas,’ Eliud says.

Working in California

California gave Eliud an experience unlike anything in his career so far. San Jose sits at the centre of Silicon Valley, surrounded by the headquarters of the companies that shape the modern world. He would spot self-driving Waymo cars on the streets of San Francisco, and Tesla Model Ys in parking lots. Stanford University was a short drive away.

One of Eliud’s biggest clients was Gilead Sciences, the company behind the HIV prevention drug lenacapavir. NVIDIA, whose work in artificial intelligence had made its long-time employees millionaires almost overnight, was practically a neighbour.

‘You just feel like you are in the home of STEM,’ he says. ‘If you have a good idea, you will find the capital, because there is a lot of venture capital looking to invest in startups.’

Yet California was the most expensive place they had ever lived. A one-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area costs about Sh323,000 a month. Taxes were steep. The paycheck was generous, but so was every bill that came with it.

‘You earn a lot more, but you spend a lot more,’ Eliud says. ‘It sort of cancels out.’

Eunice eventually joined Eliud in California full-time after completing her eight months at Princess Margaret Hospital. But by then, both of them had begun asking a deeper question. Not where the next job was, but where they actually wanted to build a life.

The answer was Canada.

‘We are at that place in life where we are considering family,’ Eunice says. ‘Canada has good options for families in terms of social services and healthcare. It is very family-friendly compared to the US.’

New life in Calgary

They chose Calgary specifically, drawn by its lower cost of living compared to cities like Toronto and Vancouver, its strong job market, and its path to permanent residency and eventually citizenship. Ernst and Young supported the move again, transferring him to their Canadian offices. Eliud arrived in Calgary in February 2025, where he is working.

‘Rent is fairly cheap. Groceries are affordable. It is not so bad,’ Eunice, now 31, says. ‘Healthcare in Canada is free. Schooling for children is free. The pace of life in Calgary is gentler than San Francisco, less frantic than Toronto.’

Again, they found family in the SDA church community in Canada, which had many congregants from Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Panama, and Ukraine.

If you asked either of them which country now feels most like home, neither of them would hesitate. ‘The Bahamas.’

‘It felt like we were home,’ says Eunice, who is now working toward qualifying for a medical residency programme in Canada. ‘We got a very wonderful church community, and we were really welcomed there. Any day, I would go back. It feels like our second home.’

Eliud adds, ‘we always joke that once we get our permanent residency and citizenship, we might end up going back.’

First-of-a-kind nuclear energy projects in countries like Kenya tend to stretch well beyond initial projections and most of the time, the culprit is the lack of institutional depth required to remain on schedule and within budget.

Regulatory readiness for newcomers, after all, is never just about giving out a licence to an owner-operator. It involves everything from setting up brand new arbitration structures that allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards to cascade, to signing treaties and conventions.

A proper and predictable regulatory framework is what transforms a financing structure from a term sheet into a financial close with the credible cost estimates, schedule-based cost distribution models, or risk-adjusted contingency plans that KenGen, for example, can defend to its own boards.

Sans a clear and predictable localised standard, aspirational cost projections based on overnight construction costs from a different country’s programme in a different decade never survive contact with an informed project finance team.

Contracts that, for example, allocate risk to reduce sovereign exposure require negotiating leverage that in turn, requires newcomers like Kenya to have done its regulatory homework so that it knows what it wants technically, and can demonstrate the institutional credibility Exim Banks need before they bankroll projects where they have to wait a decade to cash out of.

As such, regulatory readiness dominated most of the technical sessions at this year’s International Conference on Nuclear Energy (ICoNE) this year.

Technology choice goes well beyond the projected 60 to 80 years of operational performance. Gen III+ nuclear power plants like the Korean APR1400, Russia’s VVER-1200, and EPR from France all have passive safety features whose inclusion post-Fukushima has affected construction track records.

China constructed 2 EPR units in Taishan in barely a couple of years while the same reactor being constructed at Hinkley in the UK, literally just across the English Channel from France, rumbles on more than a decade behind schedule and tens of billions of euros in the red with no end in sight.

Small modular reactors, also widely discussed at ICoNE come with promises of standardisation that might mitigate some risks. However, deployment timelines, supply chain depth, and lifecycle economics that currently exist only on paper require very direct and rigorous assessments done informed by local realities.

Grid readiness is perhaps the most consistently underestimated risk for nuclear newcomer programmes because it sits outside the visible boundary of the nuclear project itself.

The transmission network that must carry its output, stabilise around its baseload characteristics, and maintain synchronisation during load transients gets managed as a secondary concern.

The countries that understood this early built their nuclear programmes as part of an industrialisation policy, not just energy policy.

South Korea is the clearest example where the nuclear fleet was built not to light up Seoul but to make Korean steel, Korean semiconductors, and Korean shipbuilding competitive on the global stage.

One very low-hanging fruit is OpenAI’s Stargate compute sites, currently identified as potential targets of hostilities elsewhere in the world. Their relocation to the Silicon Savannah would inject several tens of billions of dollars into its economy.

However, the Silicon Savanah has to prove it can keep them powered even at night or when the wind is not blowing.

No nuclear newcomer programme has arrived at first power without first passing through a period of institutional state newcomers like Kenya is in today.

The UAE was there in 2008 and Bangladesh in 2012 looking at nuclear technology in the same way France looked at it during the previous oil shock.

The East African Community countries – Uganda and Rwanda, and Ethiopia are at various stages of such contemplation. That creates an opportunity to leverage shared training infrastructure, regional safety knowledge exchange, joint emergency preparedness planning, feasibility studies, and the kind of regulatory coordination that reduces costs for everyone is just one EAC presidential summit away.

A regional nuclear safety framework, developed through the EAC and supported by the IAEA, would give every participating programme more credibility than it could build individually.

Kenya, as the programme with the longest history and the most developed institutional base, should be leading that conversation, not waiting for someone else to convene it.

President William Ruto’s direct identification of the need to optimise the local regulatory environment, such that it remains as independent as ever while ensuring Kenya’s plans to domesticate nuclear power remain on track, generated the momentum a newcomer like the Silicon Savannah needs.

What converts this into a reality is a set of specific, time-bound commitments to maintain or increase that same momentum, all of which require a proper regulatory environment optimized to enable that.

Some Safaricom customers have encountered challenges when logging into the telco’s newly launched all-in-one mobile application, disrupting their access to critical mobile money services.

Kenya’s largest telco has, since last week, been automatically migrating customers from its M-Pesa app to a new platform dubbed ‘My OneApp’, which consolidates mobile money services with customer management tools housed in the standalone MySafaricom app.

The new app integrates services such as sending money, buying airtime and data bundles, paying bills, and accessing investment products, alongside account management tools including home internet services.

‘This means less time spent navigating screens and more time simply getting things done,’ the company said on Friday.

But the transition has been marred by technical and usability concerns across both Android and iOS devices.

Some users reported struggles with log-ins and authentication. Safaricom told the Business Daily that it would provide a comprehensive response to the user concerns later this week.

As part of the rollout, users were automatically logged out of the old M-Pesa app and were required to re-authenticate their accounts via a one-time password (OTP) sent to their Safaricom SIM cards.

The process requires users to set their Safaricom line as the primary SIM (SIM 1) and to use Safaricom mobile data during login. This requirement has effectively restricted initial access to the app to Safaricom’s own network, locking out users attempting to log in via Wi-Fi, alternative data providers, or those using virtual private networks (VPNs).

The restrictions have also proven challenging for Kenyans abroad, who are unable to access the network without enabling roaming services. Some still report being unable to log in.

‘You are required to sign in via mobile data the first time to securely confirm your Safaricom SIM and protect your account from unauthorised access. Thereafter, you can switch to Wi-Fi after secure verification,’ the company said in a social media response to customer complaints on Sunday.

Some customers have reported being repeatedly logged out even after successful authentication, forcing them to repeat the process multiple times. In an X post on Monday, Safaricom said mobile data may be required ‘for the first few logins,’ contradicting earlier communication that the requirement applied only once.

M-Pesa remains central to Safaricom’s business and Kenya’s digital economy. The platform currently supports more than 37 million person-to-person transactions daily, valued at over Sh2 billion.

Others have encountered error messages such as ‘Unable to get your phone number’ when attempting to log back in. The telco declined to respond to Business Daily’s requests for comment.

A spokesperson said they would address the matters at a media event later in the week.

There is also uncertainty over the app’s support for biometric authentication. Users with Face ID and fingerprint-enabled devices report being prompted to enter their M-Pesa PINs manually, unlike the previous app.

In an article posted on its website, Safaricom has said that ‘repeated taps within short periods or unusual activity’ triggers additional PIN verification as a fraud prevention measure.

Some customers say they have lost previously saved Paybill and Till numbers during the migration, forcing them to re-enter merchant details manually.

M-Pesa remains central to Safaricom’s business and Kenya’s digital economy. The platform currently supports more than 37 million person-to-person transactions daily, valued at over Sh2 billion.

For the year ended March 2025, M-Pesa generated Sh161.1 billion in revenue in Kenya, supported by 35.82 million monthly active users. It is the company’s largest revenue driver.

M-Pesa commanded 89 percent of Kenya’s mobile money subscriptions as of December 2025. Airtel Money had an 11 percent share, while Telkom’s T-Kash had below 0.1 percent, according to data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA).

Safaricom has positioned the new app as a step toward a broader ‘super app’ strategy, similar to the likes of the Chinese mobile payment platforms WeChat Pay and Alipay. According to publicly available data from the Google Play Store, the My OneApp has been installed more than 10 million times.

The telco says it plans to expand it with agentic payments that can execute tasks on behalf of users, voice-activated commands such as sending money or shopping, and near-field communication (NFC) tap-to-pay functionality for in-store transactions.

For now, customers unable to access the new app have turned to the built-in SIM toolkit and the MySafaricom app, which remains available for download. Safaricom did not comment on whether the app will eventually also be phased out.

The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has appointed Moses Wekesa as its managing director, placing him at the centre of plans to modernise key aviation infrastructure, including Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and Wilson Airport.

Mr Wekesa takes over at a time when Kenya’s main aviation gateway, JKIA, is facing capacity constraints and heightened scrutiny over delayed expansion plans and contested financing models for upgrades.

‘The board extends its best wishes to Mr Wekesa in this new assignment and expresses its appreciation to KAA General Manager Finance Mohamud Gedi for his dedicated service as acting Managing Director,’ said the State parastatal’s board in a statement.

‘The board further acknowledges the smooth transition, particularly as KAA’s airport modernisation initiatives accelerate to enhance the sector’s contribution to Kenya’s economy.’

Mr Wekesa holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nairobi.

He also holds postgraduate qualifications in finance, appraisal and project planning from the University of Bradford in the UK.

‘His expertise extends to the wider infrastructure sector, equipping him to advance Kenya’s aviation infrastructure,’ the agency said.

Modernisation push

KAA has in recent months faced mounting pressure to deliver long-delayed modernisation projects, particularly at JKIA, amid rising passenger traffic and the need to strengthen Nairobi’s position as a regional hub.

The State agency has also faced governance scrutiny linked to large infrastructure deals, including opposition to proposed private sector participation in airport expansion, which has triggered legal and labour disputes.

The new appointee is expected to steer these projects while balancing competing demands for efficiency and public accountability in the execution of capital-intensive developments across the country’s airport network.

The agency is currently implementing expansion and upgrade programmes across several facilities, including JKIA and Wilson Airport, aimed at improving passenger experience, cargo handling and operational efficiency.

The State plans to expand JKIA’s capacity from 7.5 million passengers annually to 12 million at the current terminal, alongside the construction of a new terminal capable of handling about 22 million passengers per year.

KAA is also undertaking extensive rehabilitation works at Wilson Airport, including improvements to pavements, aprons and the facility’s two runways.

Investors rejected a government offer to switch from costly maturing bond to a new cheaper security, forcing the State to pay them Sh18.2 billion in August.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) offered holders of a 10-year bond, which is maturing in August, a chance to swap Sh20 billion with 15-year paper that will mature in 2033 to ease financing pressure on the Treasury.

Investors offered to switch Sh2.56 billion in the sale, with the CBK taking up Sh1.75 billion. This means that the Treasury will have to pay the balance of Sh18.2 billion in August.

Investors offered to switch Sh2.56 billion in the sale, with the CBK taking up Sh1.75 billion.

The 10-year paper has been paying holders 15.04 percent in annual interest, while the 15-year paper bond, which has been in the market since May 2018, is offering investors 12.65 percent.

Before the start if the Iran war at the end of February, interest rates were expected to keep declining in line with the sustained monetary easing actions of the CBK.

The apex bank had cut its policy rate by a cumulative 4.25 percentage points to 8.75 percent in 10 straight monetary policy committee (MPC) meetings between August 2024 and February 2026.

The CBK halted the easing in last week’s MPC meeting with a hold at 8.75 percent, pointing to concerns about emerging inflationary pressure from higher energy prices.

According to analysts, the market has taken cue and is now adjusting its rate expectations upwards. In such instances, investors would prefer to hold on to a liquid position, in order to be able to take advantage of higher rates in case inflation goes up in the near term.

‘While the MPC forecasts inflation to remain contained with the target range in the near term, the overall impact of higher inflation expectations on the yield curve is somewhat emerging. This is reflected in the mid-to-long segments of the government securities yield curve, where an average increase of 20 basis points has been observed,’ said analysts at NCBA Investment Bank in a fixed income note.

‘Investors seem to be increasing their required rates of return on investments as a safe-guard against anticipated inflationary pressures.’

A switch bond issuance involves the direct conversion of maturing Treasury bills and bonds into a longer term security, cushioning the exchequer from a liquidity crisis in the short term.

Domestic debt maturities are usually funded by rolling over the debt via new bond issuances, and rarely through repayments from tax collections since the government is already running a budget deficit.

Refinancing the debt through ordinary bond sales, however, means that rollovers can affect the government’s ability to make new borrowing for budgetary purposes, especially when these bonds are undersubscribed.

Swapping a bond, therefore, helps avoid competition for funds between maturities and new borrowing.

For the CBK, the timing of the war is now a threat to its efforts to extend the maturity profile of government debt at a lower cost through such switch bonds.

The April swap was the third one in 2026, but was the only one to be undersubscribed.

The first of the swaps was done in January 2026, and also involved the 10-year, 2016 paper that was being switched in the April sale. In the sale, investors agreed to roll over Sh25.17 billion worth of notes into a 15-year paper that was floated in 2022, at an annual interest rate of 13.94 percent.

The second switch sale targeting Sh15 billion was carried out last month, where holders of a five-year bond of a coupon of 11.37 percent that is due to mature in November this year transferred Sh18.4 billion into a 15-year bond that was issued in 2019 at 12.34 percent.

This year’s Own-Source Revenue (OSR) Conference will be at Tamarind Tree, Nairobi on April 22 and 23. This annual event brings together county delegates and various experts to examine best practices in how counties raise revenues.

It is a benchmarking and peer learning opportunity. This year’s meeting focuses on physical planning, land administration and property taxes. And, for the first-time, recognition awards for top performers. Partners include the World Bank, Cooperative Bank, and CS Payments.

After a period of stagnation and consistent target misses, OSR has recently surged, driven by digital reforms, growing by 156 percent since 2013. Still, it only contributes about 12 percent of total county budgets. Collections have grown from Sh26.3 billion to Sh67.3 billion per year. Meanwhile, targets increased from Sh54.2 billion to Sh78.6 billion in the same period.

Last financial year, counties collected 77 percent of their targets, considerably better than 48.5 percent 10 years earlier, indicating both better revenue performance and forecasting. Performance in 2024/25, was particularly strong with a 63 percent increase from the previous year. This is due to system automation and human side reforms.

Nairobi and Mombasa reduced leakages and increased collections by over 30 percent.

Across the board, revenue from health facility services significantly bolstered totals, with the Facility Improvement Fund (FIF) hitting 118 percent of its target in 2024/25. Narok (with Sh2.98 billion in a single quarter), Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru are leading OSR generators by volume.

The 10 most improved counties surpassed their 2023/24 targets. These include Turkana (241 percent), Vihiga (136 percent), and Kirinyaga (118 percent).

Counties with lowest performance like Tana River, Marsabit, and Wajir consistently record the poor absolute figures, often due to smaller tax bases.

Despite growth, challenges persist. A large gap remains between current collections (Sh67.3 billion) and the documented potential of Sh240 billions.

Some counties still rely on outdated manual processes, leading to high revenue leakages. In a serious lapse, others have outdated valuation rolls meaning property taxes are based on old land values. Most businesses operate in mobile money enabled sectors – a great opportunity for innovative counties.

But benchmarking is widely misunderstood in Kenya, primarily because the term has been taken from its actual meaning and recast in the public eye as a synonym for wasteful government spending. While dismissed as joyrides for per diem purposes, benchmarking remains a vital management tool, used effectively in various sectors.

Professional benchmarking is a structured process that includes first identifying specific gaps in your own performance before looking elsewhere. Then you choose a best-in-class partner to specifically learn from. The magic of benchmarking lies in the discipline to adapt and implement findings locally – a step often missing in criticised government trips.

Njeri joined a new artificial intelligence firm in Westlands, Nairobi, that was experiencing rapid growth. Excited in her fresh role and industry, she felt perplexed by her new supervisor who seemed to have unusually high standards.

He would call her into his office after team meetings and calmly but clearly insist that certain conversations did not happen the way Njeri remembered them from the meeting that just transpired.

If she raised any concerns about the discrepancies, he would smile and misogynistically suggest that she had grown too emotional to think clearly.

Other colleagues praised her work, but her boss would later at times tell her privately that colleagues actually seriously doubted her work output and judgement but only acted polite when speaking to her face so that they would not hurt her feelings.

Slowly and without consciously realising it, Njeri started to question her own memory, instincts, and abilities until one afternoon she figured out that she was not the only employee noticing the bizarre issue with her boss.

While what Njeri was going through clearly falls into mental manipulation, such experiences often get dismissed too casually in everyday work conversations.

People in 2026 often toss around the term gaslighting as if it stands as a catchword for all kinds of lying, rudeness, or even ordinary office politics. But in reality, it is something very deep and specific.

A newly released comprehensive study by Babatunde Ogunfowora and Joshua Bourdage shows the need to be more careful in explaining the realities of workplace gaslighting and not just casually using it to refer to any general mistreatment at the office.

Researchers specifically define professional gaslighting as a distinct attempt by a person holding power to control another individual by making them doubt their own perceptions, memories, abilities, and sense-of-self at work.

The distinction matters because not each and every toxic boss gaslights. But gaslighting is indeed a form of toxicity that leaves especially deep psychological scars.

What are some managerial actions that encompass gaslighting? Denying actual events, flipping around realities of a story, presenting false versions of what happened, subtly regulating the employee’s actions, or using psychological manipulation to keep the other person off-balance.

The study found some disturbing impacts that employees feel as a result of being gaslit by their bosses. Experiences include self-doubt, confusion, dread, avoidance, feeling a surreal eerie feeling that something feels wrong and distorted even when one cannot fully explain why.

The research further uncovered that much of the negative impacts of gaslighting comes from power imbalances. Gaslighting flourishes more when one person holds more control over things needed by the other person like resources, approvals, or punishment avoidance.

Workplace hierarchy already gives managers considerable formal legitimate authority over so many things like evaluations, assignments, visibility, and opportunities.

But a gaslighting boss does not merely insult or criticise but can actively reshape an employee’s working reality by controlling narratives, blocking support, denying pervious instructions, and making the staff member increasingly dependent on the boss for a version of what is supposedly true.

Additionally, the study finds that beyond hurt feelings, when leaders utilise gaslighting tactics, the affected employees then generate worse organisational outcomes for their companies such as lower organisation-based self-esteem, stronger desires to quit the firm, and their performance on tasks drops precipitously.

Affected workers even increase their own workplace deviousness, sometimes in attempts to get revenge.

Meanwhile, other affected staff completely change their behaviours to start their own impression management routine toward their boss to not be viewed so negatively.

Such actions can include trying harder to please the manager, appeasing them, or excessive striving to win their approval, which is sad irony since their boss is the very person who destabilises them.

Putting it bluntly, a gaslit employee may start performing for the boss more anxiously while quietly falling apart inside.

Finally, the research finds that workers can fight back against gaslighting and not just subside as helpless victims.

When employees possess stronger informal workplace power relative to their manager, especially by being experts in their field, widely networked in their industry, and well-liked by fellow employees, then the effects of gaslighting reduce.

So, bosses will then find it harder to distort their reality perceptions. This shows the unfortunate truth that in many organisations, it is the younger staff, junior professionals, or the most isolated employees who suffer the most from gaslighting because they lack the protective social standing to resist the manipulation.

In short, build expertise, foster internal and external alliances, and establish trusted networks to not only protect your career from a bad manipulative boss, but stabilise your sanity as well.

Students joining university are now facing a more restrictive funding regime after the government confirmed it has stopped awarding scholarships to those placed in private universities.

This comes even as enrolment in higher education has surged by more than 300 per cent over the last decade, according to the University Fund acting CEO Edwin Wanyonyi.

Under the revised funding structure, students admitted to private universities through the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) will only access government loans, with scholarships now reserved exclusively for those placed in public universities.

In an interview, Dr Wanyonyi said the 2021-2023 cohort was the last group of government-sponsored students in private universities to benefit from scholarship support.

From subsequent intakes, students placed in private institutions through KUCCPS will only access loans, effectively excluding them from state scholarship funding.

‘Students make their choices and are placed accordingly, which is in order. However, the last cohort of government-sponsored students in private universities was 2021-2023. After that, we have not placed government-sponsored students in private universities in terms of scholarships,’ said Dr Wanyonyi.

On April 7, KUCCPS invited candidates who sat the 2025 KCSE examinations to apply for degree and TVET programmes.

The placement agency said it had received results for 980,444 eligible candidates, out of whom 268,700 attained a mean grade of C+ and above, qualifying for placement to degree programmes in 43 public and 31 private universities.

Dr Wanyonyi clarified that while placement into private universities remains part of the national system, government support has now been restructured into a dual model-where students in public universities qualify for both scholarships and loans, while those in private universities can only access loans.

This means that even students placed in private universities through KUCCPS will now have to rely entirely on loans and household contributions to finance their studies, despite being selected through the national placement system.

‘The key change is that such students are no longer eligible for scholarships, only loans,’ he added.

The shift comes at a time when university enrolment has risen sharply.

Government data shows student numbers have increased from about 70,000 in 2017 to approximately 258,000 in 2025, representing a rise of more than 300 per cent in under a decade.

Currently, 437,648 students are funded under the system, drawn from three cohorts: 122,634 admitted in 2023, 134,889 in 2024, and 180,125 in 2025.

‘In terms of student numbers, the growth is very significant. Over the last 10 years, enrolment has grown by more than 300 per cent, while the economy has grown at an average rate of 5 to 6 per cent,’ Dr Wanyonyi said.

As a result, the government says it is only able to fund about 70 per cent of universities’ resource requirements.

‘Currently, we are funding close to 70 per cent of the resource requirement for universities in terms of scholarships,’ he added.

Under the current model, funding is targeted at the most needy students, while others are expected to contribute through loans and family support.

Dr Wanyonyi revealed that discussions are ongoing with the National Treasury and the Ministry of Education to boost funding for higher education, with proposals to increase scholarship allocations by about Sh30 billion.

‘We are projecting an increase of close to Sh30 billion in scholarship funding from the current Sh15 billion. That will go a long way in helping to bridge the resource gap,’ he said.

Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala told MPs that funding for the 2025/26 financial year has remained unchanged despite the admission of the largest student cohort to date.

She said the ministry requires Sh29.55 billion to fully support students under the new model but has been allocated Sh16.92 billion, leaving a shortfall of Sh12.63 billion. This means universities are currently operating at about 57 per cent of the required funding.

An additional Sh1.5 billion has been proposed under Supplementary Budget I to raise scholarship funding to Sh18.42 billion, increasing coverage to about 62 per cent-still below the full requirement.

Should married couples work together in the same company? There seems to be no clear answer as companies take different stances, even as global statistics show a growing trend in romantic relationships, with 43 percent of respondents in a recent survey saying they married someone they worked with.

With little time outside work to nurture romantic interests and the desire for a shared experience, the survey showed employees are increasingly looking at the workplace pool for long-term companions.

And companies are slowly acknowledging the inevitability. In Kenya, KCB Group, Old Mutual and Absa Bank allow married couples to work together so long as neither supervises the other.

‘If you reflect on the African tradition, people married people they knew. You never went out and got a stranger to come into the community. So, if we are working on a project every day, it’s possible that is where I will find somebody that I really like, and we can start dating. So we don’t discourage,’ says Mumbi Kahindo, the People and Culture Director at Absa Bank Kenya.

‘We have no policies to say you cannot marry your peer, but there are conditions because we don’t want family issues brought into the office.’

The conditions, Ms Mumbi says include disclosing to the human resource department as soon as the couple realise they are working on a long-term commitment and ensuring they are not in the same reporting line.

‘But we also ask that if one of you is senior to the other, you can’t report in the same structure. So, we then ask, how do we change the role, change the person out of your structure? One of them – it can be the woman is more senior than the man, and I have seen those cases,-has to move,’ says Ms Mumbi.

Romance-driven performance

Dr Ben Chumo, chairman EagleHR Consultants and former CEO of Kenya Power, holds that romantic relationships do not affect performance.

He cautions that discouraging coupling at the workplace results in employees dating and living together secretly without formalising their relationship, which denies them the security of a formal marriage. It also denies them some employment benefits, especially on insurance policies and perks offered to employees who marry outsiders.

‘I know in some banks up to now, that is the rule rather than the exception. You cannot work together if you get married, one of you must leave. That philosophy was meant to maintain objectivity, and minimise chances of collusion,’ says Dr Chumo.

He, however, notes the fear regarding collusion among couples is unfounded as friends can also collude, even enemies who stand to benefit from a partnership.

‘It is an imaginary situation. I mean, people can collude; they don’t have to be married. I think stigmatising marriage in the workplace is a very unfair policy,’ says Dr Chumo.

He adds that married couples bring stability in the company as they share resources, easing financial burden, which allows for faster growth.

Gross misconduct or discrimination?

While most companies say couples should disclose their relationship, some are silent on what happens after disclosure. Mentor Sacco Society’s human resource policy, which discourages romantic relationships, was recently cited in a court hearing following the dismissal of a couple in January 2023 for gross misconduct.

‘To reduce conflict and distraction at the workplace, the Sacco discourages romantic relationships between employees and the board of directors. The following will thus form as guidelines for employees regarding such relationships – where two employees mutually agree to get married or live together, one of them shall be required to resign from the Sacco within one month to avoid conflict of interest,’ reads the policy.

In the case of Mentor, despite finding that the dismissal of two employees was unlawful, the court among other reasons denied their prayer for reinstatement due to a clause within the employer’s human resource manual that discouraged romantic relationships between employees and recommended that where two employees mutually agree to be married, one had to resign to avoid conflict of interest.

To avoid legal battles on grounds of discrimination, Wesley K’Ogangah, an associate lawyer at Anne Babu and Company, notes that employers should avoid imposing blanket bans or severe penalties for consensual relationships.

Doing so, he says, may be seen as infringement to their employees’ personal rights.

‘Policies can include provisions requiring the disclosure of relationships that may pose a conflict of interest while avoiding outright prohibitions on workplace romance,’ says Mr K’Ogangah.

‘Policies that impose blanket bans or excessive monitoring of such relationships may be deemed invasive and unconstitutional, as the court ruled in MNM versus G4S Kenya.’

He notes that by implementing well-considered policies and enforcing them consistently, employers can avoid legal challenges while maintaining a professional and respectful work environment.