Category: Business Daily

Property agencies face daily fines of Sh10,000 for failing to register with the anti-money laundering watchdog, the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC), in a crackdown on corrupt business people and other criminals hiding wealth in real estate.

The anti-money laundering watchdog has turned the heat on the property and land dealers after only 112 of the targeted 1,504 agents registered with it. All real estate agencies have been directed to register with the FRC by November 14 or risk penalties for non-compliance, which include Sh25 million fines for institutions and Sh5 million fines for individuals.

Kenya will be required to substantially improve its collection of taxes to raise its credit score, global ratings agencies have said.

The country’s ratings from all three major agencies sit in the non-investment grade category at B- for Fitch, Caa1 for Moody’s and B for Standard and Poors (S and P).

Consumers could soon face a fresh levy on fuel and electricity as the government moves to introduce a special fund to finance energy projects and reduce loans.

Contributions from the energy sector will be one of the sources of money for the Consolidated Energy Fund (CEF). These contributions are likely to be in the form of a new charge on fuel or electricity to be collected from consumers.

You arrive at work, coffee in hand, ready to tackle the day. But your manager seems off, curt in meetings, impatient with questions, and unusually sharp in tone.

Before chalking it up to personality, consider this: they might just be sleep-deprived. Research in organisational behaviour and sleep science suggests that a leader’s sleep quality can significantly shape their behaviour at work – not just their mood, but their decision-making, communication style, and even ethical judgement. And the effects ripple far beyond the manager themselves.

In a multi-day field study tracking supervisors and their teams, researchers found that poor sleep on one night predicted more abusive supervisory behaviour the next day. This wasn’t a fixed trait; the same leaders behaved more positively after better sleep.

The study revealed a clear pattern: when leaders slept poorly, their capacity for self-control dropped. This affected the people around them, leading to more brittle interactions and disengaged teams.

The whole team is affected

This isn’t just about being cranky. Sleep deprivation impairs emotional regulation, reduces patience and increases impulsivity.

Tired managers are more likely to micromanage, react punitively and set an edgy tone, even when their team members are well-rested. These behaviours, in turn, reduce team engagement and discretionary effort. The result is a measurable dip in collective energy and productivity.

Despite the evidence, many organisations still glorify sleep deprivation. Executives who rise at 4am and start working before sunrise are often celebrated as paragons of discipline.

Read: How sufficient sleep prevents stress, mental health problems

For some, early starts align with their natural circadian rhythms, which regulate our sleep/wake cycle. But for many others, this schedule creates circadian misalignment – a mismatch between biological clocks and social demands – which degrades alertness, mood and long-term health.

Management scholars argue that this culture begins early, in business schools and leadership development programs, where short sleep is normalised as a badge of honour.

But the consequences are serious. Chronic sleep deprivation undermines learning, performance and wellbeing, cultivating leaders who are less resilient, less clear-headed and less engaging at precisely the moments that call for steadiness and persuasion.

Leaders aren’t aware of the value of sleep

Surveys suggest nearly half of leaders report sleep problems, and more than 65 percent are dissatisfied with how much sleep they get.

Alarmingly, over 40 percent regularly sleep six hours or less, well below the recommended seven to eight hours for adults. And more than 80 percent of leaders say that not enough effort was spent to educate them about the importance of sleep.

The short-term effects of sleep deprivation are well known:

daytime sleepiness

reduced attention span

and slower reaction times.

But the long-term consequences are even more concerning. Chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk of depression, addiction, obesity and metabolic disorders. It also impairs self-regulation, making individuals more prone to impulsive behaviours, from unhealthy eating to substance misuse.

For leaders, sleep isn’t just a health issue, it’s a performance issue. Studies show sleep-deprived leaders are less inspiring, less charismatic and, as mentioned earlier, more likely to be abusive towards their teams.

They struggle to manage their emotions, and often are not aware that their hostility stems from poor sleep. This can initiate a downward spiral: negative interactions lead to rumination and stress, which further disrupt sleep, perpetuating the cycle. Even a few nights of poor sleep can damage leader-follower relationships.

And the consequences extend to ethics. Sleep deprivation compromises moral awareness and increases the likelihood of unethical behaviour. One study found a 2.1-hour reduction in sleep led to a 10 percent decline in moral awareness.

Education can build a healthier workplace

Given the evidence, leadership development programs must take sleep seriously. Career sustainability for leaders means building mental and physical resilience to meet high job demands, and sleep is central to that.

Leaders also play a critical role in modelling healthy behaviours for their teams. By prioritising sleep, they can foster a culture of wellbeing and sustainable performance.

Unfortunately, sleep is still undervalued in many organisations. But that can change. By educating current and future leaders about the science of sleep, organisations can cultivate more effective, ethical and engaging leadership – and healthier workplaces overall.

So next time your manager seems unusually difficult, consider what kind of night they had. A short or restless sleep might be the invisible force shaping today’s workplace dynamics.

A legal battle pitting a Chinese company against the government over gold mining rights in Narok County has taken a new turn after the High Court allowed another firm, Tianjin Hongfengyuan Trading Co. Ltd, to join the dispute amid allegations of document forgery and defrauding of investors.

Justice Lucy Gacheru ruled that the Tianjin-based company demonstrated sufficient interest in the constitutional petition filed by Bao Gold Hill Kenya Limited in August.

Equity Group Holdings more than doubled its spending on staff training to Sh846.6 million last year in a bid to entrench regulatory compliance, fraud awareness, credit risk management and ethical conduct.

This represented a 167 percent increase from Sh317 million spent in 2023, according to the lender’s latest sustainability report.

The price of gold surged above $4,100 an ounce on Wednesday for the first time, taking this year’s extraordinary rally to more than 50.

The speed of the upswing has been much faster than analysts had predicted and brings the total gains to nearly 100 percent since the current run started in early 2024.

The soaring price of gold has captured investors’ hearts and wallets and resulted in long lines of people forming outside gold dealers in Sydney to get their hands on the precious metal. What explains the soaring price of gold?

A number of reasons have been suggested to explain the current record run for gold. These include greater economic uncertainties from ballooning government debt levels and the current US government shutdown.

There are also growing worries about the independence of the US Federal Reserve. If political interference pushes down US interest rates, that could see a resurgence in inflation. Gold is traditionally seen as a hedge against inflation.

But these factors are unlikely to be the main reasons behind the meteoric rise in gold prices.

For starters, the price of gold has been on a sustained upward trajectory for the past few years. That’s well before any of those factors emerged as an issue.

The more likely explanation for the current gold price rally is growing demand from gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

These funds track the movements of gold, or other assets such as stocks or bonds, and are traded on the stock exchange. This makes assets such as commodities much more accessible to investors.

Before the first gold ETF was launched in 2003, it was considered too difficult for regular investors to get gold exposure.

Now gold ETFs are widely available, gold can be traded like any other financial asset. This appears to be changing investors’ view of gold’s traditional role as a safe-haven asset in times of political or financial turmoil, when other assets such as stocks are more risky.

In addition to retail investor demand, some emerging market economies – notably China and Russia – are switching their official reserve assets out of currencies such as the US dollar and into gold.

According to the International Monetary Fund, central bank holdings of physical gold in emerging markets have risen 161 percent since 2006 to be around 10,300 tonnes.

To put this into perspective, emerging market gold holdings grew by only 50 percent over the 50 years to 2005.

Research suggests the reason for the switch into gold by emerging market economies is the increasing use of financial sanctions by the US and other governments that represent the major reserve currencies (the US dollar, euro, Japanese yen, and British pound).

Indeed, Russia became a net buyer of gold in 2006 and accelerated its gold purchases following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. It now has one of the largest stockpiles in the world.

Meanwhile, China has been selling down its holdings of US government bonds and switching to buying gold in a process referred to as ‘de-dollarisation’. It wants to reduce its dependency on the US currency.

Emerging market central banks also lifted their gold holdings after Russia’s exclusion from the international payments system known as SWIFT and a proposal by US and European governments to seize Russian central bank reserves to help fund support for Ukraine.

Further de-dollarisation efforts by emerging market economies are expected to continue. Many of these economies now view the major Western currencies as carrying unwanted risk of financial sanctions. This is not the case with gold. This could mean financial sanctions become a less effective policy tool in the future.

Could gold have further to run?

Ongoing demand from Russia and China, and investor demand for gold ETFs, means the gold price could rally further. Both factors represent sustained increases in demand, in addition to existing demand for jewellery and electronics.

Further price rises will likely fuel increased ETF inflows via the ‘fear of missing out’ effect.

The World Gold Council last week reported record monthly inflows in September. For the September quarter as a whole, ETF inflows topped $26 billion and for the nine months to September, fund inflows totalled $64 billion.

In contrast, emerging market central bank demand for gold is less affected by price and more driven by geopolitical factors, which supports increasing demand for gold.

Based on these two drivers, analysts at Goldman Sachs have already revised up their price target for gold to $4,900 an ounce by the end of the 2026.

Why gold’s rise is a win for Australia

What does the current gold rally mean for Australia?

As the world’s third-largest producer of gold, with at least 19 percent of known deposits, Australia will benefit from further increases in gold prices.

In fact, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources now expects the value of gold exports to overtake liquefied natural gas exports next year.

This will see gold become our second-most important export behind that other ‘precious’ metal: iron ore.

Tourism and hospitality remain among the most dynamic industries in East Africa, and at the heart of this transformation are young people. They are not just the largest share of the workforce but also a growing segment of the clientele.

Nearly 80 percent of the hospitality workforce is made up of youth, and their creativity, and energy is reshaping how we design and deliver tourism experiences.

Turkish clothing retailer LC Waikiki Retail Ke Ltd has blamed low sales and poor foot traffic for its decision to terminate a sublease agreement with Nova Holdings Ltd for a shop space within the Likoni Mall in Mombasa before the stipulated period has lapsed.

The retailer says its store at the Likoni Mall has experienced persistent low sales and poor foot traffic, which continued to decline through 2023 and 2024.

Marketing and communications firm WPP-Scangroup Plc has appointed Akua Owusu-Nartey as its new chief executive following the exit of Patricia Ithau in July 2025.

Ms Owusu-Nartey, who is also set to assume the role of CEO at the Group’s public relations subsidiary, Ogilvy Africa, has been the acting managing director for Scanad Kenya, a marketing arm of the business.

She has also held other previous roles within the Ogilvy network, including serving as the chief client officer, head of connected culture and regional managing director. Her experience of over two decades has also seen her work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vodafone, Safaricom, and Coca-Cola.

Ms Owusu-Nartey’s immediate task will be turning around the business, which remained in the red through six months to June 2025, even as Scangroup’s half-year loss fell slightly to Sh208.3 million from Sh252.3 million on lower operating and administration expenses.

WPP Scangroup revenues have come under pressure from reduced spending by clients and the exit of some key customers, including Airtel Africa at the end of June and two other unnamed firms in 2024.

The exit of Airtel is expected to impact the group’s financial performance in the second half of the year.

Ms Owusu-Nartey holds an MBA from Hult International Business School.

‘My focus will be on harnessing the incredible talent within our agencies to deliver unrivalled creativity and business impact for our clients,’ she said.

‘By deepening collaboration and accelerating innovation, we will solidify our position as the indispensable partners for growth in Africa.’

Scangroup’s chief finance officer, Miriam Kaggwa, has been serving as the firm’s interim CEO.