Category: Business Daily

From the United States to Saudi Arabia, new taxes are threatening to derail diaspora remittances to Kenya in 2026, unsettling an increasingly important source of foreign exchange.

The United States, Kenya’s top source of remittances, has introduced a 1 percent excise tax on money sent abroad, effectively raising the cost of sending funds back home from January 1.

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The upcoming premier sports and events destination, Talanta Sports City, is set to feature a 300-room four-star hotel and a shopping mall, as part of efforts to position the venue as a premier destination for sports, entertainment and major events.

Fresh disclosures show that the hotel and shopping mall would be developed on three- and four-acre parcels, respectively, of a Kenya Forest Service (KFS)-owned land, with the mall designed to offer a minimum of 30,000 square metres of gross lettable area (GLA). A GLA is the total floor area of a property that is available to be rented out to tenants.

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If you only read one book about leadership in the coming months, let it be The Humanized Leader by Dr Martin Oduor-Otieno.

For Martin – please allow me to call him that as he and I have worked together in many ways over many years – writes so well about this leadership subject.

What would happen if more people in the informal economy had access to the tools they needed to earn a stable income? The answer, is not merely individual benefit. It is an economic transformation.

Today, millions of people rely on motorcycles, tuk-tuks and smartphones to participate in the fast-growing digital and service economies. These assets enable transportation of people and goods, facilitate payments and logistics, and connect entrepreneurs to customers, suppliers and opportunities.

Yet for a very long time, access to such assets was limited to those who could meet strict, formal credit requirements. These criteria excluded the majority of working people. Entrepreneurship in these markets is rarely optional. It is how families pay school fees, build houses and support communities. It is work rooted not in risk, but in resilience.

It is clear that owning an income-generating asset, such as a motorcycle or smartphone can provide a more powerful and immediate uplift in earnings, compared to receiving a small loan.

In both mobility and connectivity, the principle remains the same: access to the right tools unlocks the ability to earn, to plan and to progress.

But scale has also brought lessons. Financial inclusion is only meaningful when the outcomes are positive and enduring. The broader economic landscape is shifting, too. Across Africa and emerging markets globally, three transitions are redefining how people work and move.

First, the transportation sector is gradually electrifying. Electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers offer lower operating costs, more predictable margins and environmental benefits, provided they are supported with the right infrastructure and financing models.

Second, payments are becoming increasingly digital. Mobile money ecosystems are not only facilitating transactions. They are generating valuable economic visibility and creating credit pathways where none existed before.

Third, informal work is gaining structure. Through technology, gig platforms and digital identity, workers who were once invisible to financial systems are becoming legible and therefore financeable.

These transitions represent a fundamental shift in how economic participation operates. They come with a clear challenge: systems must keep pace with the speed of the people who rely on them.

Looking ahead to the next decade, the focus must therefore move from broadening access to accelerating upward mobility.

The questions we now ask ourselves include: How do we help customers advance from their first asset to their second, and eventually toward business expansion? How do we use data to help them anticipate income shocks before they occur?

How do we collaborate with regulators, manufacturers and development partners to ensure that new technologies, such as electric mobility, translate into real economic benefits?

These are not abstract concerns. They represent the next frontier of financial inclusion, where access is paired with long-term capability and where short-term opportunity evolves into sustainable progress.

The Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC) has supported the issuance of 4,500 affordable home loans, helping to lift the total mortgages volume to 30,000 last year.

The National Treasury has made the disclosure, which also puts cumulative lending by the mortgage refinancing company at Sh21.4 billion as at the end of August 2025.

Repeatedly renewing short-term contracts over a long period of time, without transitioning an employee to a more secure employment arrangement, may amount to a violation of their constitutional right to fair labour practices.

In a significant judgment, the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC), in Gichuki v Kenya Power and Lighting Company Plc (Petition E021 of 2024) [2025] KEELRC 2578, cautioned employers against the casualisation of labour.

Nairobi County is seeking to charge wayleave fees on Kenya Power and Kenya Electricity Generating Company (Ketraco), setting the devolved unit on a collision path with the Energy Act 2019 amid fears that the fees could trigger a rise in electricity prices.

The charge is contained in the County Finance Bill, 2025 and includes an application fee of Sh5,200 per instance for lines of one to two kilometres and Sh6,500 per instance for two to five kilometer lines.

Kenya risks nationwide power blackouts after bank accounts belonging to the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) were frozen in the wake of a Sh10 billion row, leaving the utility with no cash for repairs and maintenance.

In an urgent application filed at the High Court, Ketraco warned that the freezing of its 17 bank accounts has severely disrupted its operations, including the maintenance of electricity transmission lines, raising the possibility of widespread power outages across the country.

Kenya Airways (KQ) has restored one of its grounded planes, deploying it on busy local and regional routes to meet rising travel demand during the festive season, helping to boost revenues for the year.

On Friday, the national carrier returned one of its five Embraer ERJ-190s, which had been grounded for an extended period due to a shortage of aircraft parts, restoring part of its lost capacity. Since its return, the plane has made 19 flights across local and regional routes as KQ seeks to cope with heightened demand on some of its busiest sectors.

It is easy to reach for packaged snacks, instant noodles or sugary drinks in a busy city life. They are convenient, fast, and everywhere.

However, as more Kenyans fill their pantries with ultra-processed foods, nutritionists and gastroenterologists are raising alarm about the impact on our digestive health.