Category: Business Daily

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.

The Treasury has cut Sh96 billion from its tax target for the year starting July amid efforts to avoid youth-led protests and an eye on voters in an election year.

It projects to raise Sh2.9 trillion from taxes in the year ending June 2027 from an initial target of Sh2.99 trillion, says the Budget Policy Statement, which guides the preparation of county and national budgets as well as the Finance Bill.

Kenya’s economic debate is often framed around taxes, debt, and elections. Yet a quieter, more stubborn challenge is increasingly shaping corporate balance sheets and public finances alike: weak productivity growth.

While inflation and interest rates grab headlines, productivity determines whether firms can grow profits without passing costs to consumers, and whether the State can expand services without perpetually raising taxes.

At firm level, many Kenyan businesses are working harder but not necessarily smarter. Long hours, manual processes, and duplicated approvals remain common, even in sectors that should be digitally mature.

The result is rising operating costs, slow decision-making, and declining competitiveness-especially when compared with regional peers such as Rwanda and global rivals who embed technology into everyday operations.

This challenge is mirrored in the public sector. Government ministries and agencies have made notable progress in digitisation, yet productivity gains remain uneven.

Systems exist, but they often do not ‘talk’ to each other. Businesses still submit the same data repeatedly to different offices, undermining the efficiency benefits technology is meant to deliver. For entrepreneurs and investors, this translates into time costs that quietly erode returns.

The irony is that Kenya does not lack talent or ideas. What is missing is systematic productivity management. In many organisations, performance is measured by activity rather than outcomes.

Meetings substitute for execution, and compliance crowds out innovation. Boards and senior managers rarely ask the most important question: how much value are we generating per shilling of labour, capital, and time? There is also a policy dimension. Institutions such as the Central Bank of Kenya and the Kenya Revenue Authority focus, understandably, on stability and revenue.

But productivity growth is the bridge between fiscal sustainability and private sector expansion. Without it, tax hikes become politically tempting but economically damaging, as firms struggle to absorb additional costs. Encouragingly, some Kenyan companies are beginning to treat productivity as a strategic asset.

They are investing in process automation, data analytics, and staff upskilling-not as IT projects, but as business transformation. The lesson is clear: technology alone does not raise productivity; disciplined management does. Clear targets, simplified workflows, and accountability matter as much as software.

For policymakers, the implication is equally direct. Productivity should be an explicit national objective, measured and reported with the same seriousness as inflation or GDP growth.

Regulatory impact assessments must ask not only whether a rule is necessary, but whether it saves or wastes productive time.

Public sector managers should be rewarded for efficiency gains, not just budget absorption.

Kenya’s next phase of growth will not be driven by working longer hours or borrowing more. It will be driven by producing more value with what we already have. That makes productivity not just an economic concept, but a boardroom issue-and a national priority.