Category: Business Daily

Bilal Auma Washikumba, a Kenyan chef, has made his way from the coastal kitchens of Mombasa to the fine-dining rooms of Nairobi and now to Kigali, where he is shaping menus, mentoring young cooks and proving that the life of a chef sometimes calls for a delicate balancing act.

At The Hemingways Retreat Kigali, where he is the executive chef, Bilal says his role is about more than putting plates before guests. It is about consistency, profit, guest satisfaction and, increasingly, training the next crop of chefs in a market he says is still growing.

He has worked in some of Kenya’s leading hotels, gaining skills in seafood, fine dining, kitchen management and hotel operations.

He was in kitchens at Leisure Lodge Hotel in Mombasa, Jacaranda Indian Ocean Beach Club, the Norfolk Hotel’s Pango fine dining restaurant, Fairview Hotel, Sopa Lodges in the Maasai Mara and Naivasha, and Temple Point Resort in Watamu before relocating to Kigali, Rwanda, in May 2022.

‘I worked with the most experienced chefs, Italian chefs, so that’s where I got my experience. I loved doing lobster, tamido and prawns piri piri.’

In 2009, he stepped away for two and a half years to study at Kenya Utalii College, a move he says gave him the management grounding that hands-on hotel training had not fully provided.

‘I really wanted to have insights into the kitchen because when you do normal in-house training, there are things that you miss out on in terms of kitchen management,’ he says.

Then called the Retreat, before Hemingways acquired it officially in mid-2025, Bilal found not just a kitchen to lead, but a team to build.

‘When I joined, we started creating menus with the junior chefs, the local Rwandese chefs,’ he says. ‘I built up a team. Many have left, and they are chefs now in other hotels.’

For him, that movement is not a loss but proof that the training is working.

‘Rwanda is a small market and the culinary world is still [fledgling]. You cannot compare it to Kenya,’ he says. ‘But I like it when people come, train, leave, and they go succeed.’

The Kenyan chef is now grooming another group.

‘Currently, we have a new team we’ve been training. I’ve had to ensure I work closely with them because most of them have not gone to culinary school.’

He plans to take some of the kitchen staff to Kenya for a hands-on experience ‘to have that experience and broaden their knowledge in culinary skills.’

On the menu, he has been blending local Rwandan produce with international ideas.

‘We have the ribeye on bone that is served with the local plantain (mizuzu),’ he says.

Another fixture is tilapia from Lake Kivu. ‘Tilapia never used to be [on the menu],’ he says. ‘So, currently I’m doing tilapia that goes with the local spinach.’

For Bilal, the rules of the kitchen are clear. ‘One, you have to be strict with your recipe. Then you must have passion for cooking. You have to control your costs so that the company can also realise profits,’ he says.

He is a Muslim, but he does not let these beliefs get in the way of his job. He tastes everything when needed to, and that may include beef, whether halal or not, and pork.

‘Yes, I taste pork,’ he says. ‘It’s part of my job…Let’s say it’s Ramadhan, then you come in the kitchen, and you are telling people you cannot taste food because you are fasting. When a guest complains, you can’t tell [unless you taste]. So, some boundaries I just leave it out then I say I’m coming to do my job. And I do it right.’

Do chefs cook at home too?

‘My kids love to see me cooking, so they challenge me,’ says the 42-year-old. ‘I do a lot of cooking when I take my off and my leave.’

He is also clear that the title chef must be earned.

‘If you want to be a good chef, you must start from the cleaning part, the stewarding part, then you grow from there,’ he says.

‘Cooking comes from the heart,’ he says. ‘You must enjoy your job.’

Kenya will borrow Sh81 billion for the expansion of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, dropping an earlier plan to fully fund the upgrade using a bond.

The loan will account for 70 percent of the Sh116 billion expansion costs and the balance of Sh35 billion will be raised through a securitised bond and from the recently established infrastructure fund.

The bond will be backed and repaid from the air passenger service levy.

Under securitisation, projected future revenue streams from the levy, a fee $50 (Sh6,450) for international journey tickets and Sh600 for domestic, will be packaged into marketable securities that are sold to investors.

Kenya is aiming to nearly triple JKIA’s annual passenger handling capacity to 22 million, but had to pause the project last year after it cancelled a deal with India’s Adani group in 2024 following the ?indictment of its founder in the United States.

The government has contracted Africa’s Trade and Development Bank and Africa Finance Corporation to arrange financing for a $900 million (Sh116 billion) expansion of its main airport in Nairobi.

‘KAA will put in 30 percent equity, and we’ll go to the market to borrow 70 percent… So, we’re basically leveraging the air passenger service charge tax, to basically sell a portion of that to raise the 30 percent, and we’ll go to the market with a bankable project to raise 70 percent,’ said Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Davies Chirchir in an interview.

The overall cost of the project is expected to fall from the initial $1.2 billion (Sh155 billion) to an estimated $900 million (Sh116 billion).

‘We also want to leverage on the National Infrastructure Fund argument that if they put in a portion of the investments, we can get a tax-free regime and we’ll be able to bring down the cost to an average of $900 million on account of bringing down the tax,’ Mr Chirchir said.

The project involves rehabilitating existing airport facilities, including ?runways and aprons, and building a new passenger terminal to boost annual passenger handling capacity to 22 million, from 7.5 million.

Kenya is keen to maintain its ?position as a travel hub in the region, even as Ethiopia and Rwanda invest billions in new airports to entice airlines ?and travellers.

The country is also seeking new ways to finance infrastructure after a debt surge squeezed its finances.

The loan deal differs from the previous plan, which would have seen Adani carry out the expansion and then hand a 30-year lease to operate the airport.

That plan was scrapped in 2024 when US authorities indicted Gautam Adani and several executives, alleging they paid bribes to secure Indian power contracts and misled US investors.

The US authorities this year dropped the Adani case.

Kenya had also mulled a $4.2 billion (Sh540 billion) bond for the expansion of the standard gauge railway (SGR) and JKIA.

To finance its mega infrastructure projects amid limited fiscal space, Kenya is increasingly turning to public-private partnerships (PPPs), including tolling for roads, and securitised bonds.

The government in securitisation taps capital from private bondholders at an agreed rate of return and is secured by projected cash flows from an existing fund or levy.

In the JKIA expansion, it will use the air passenger service levy to secure the bond. In the year to June 2025, the levy collected Sh3.1 billion from passengers.

China Road and Bridge Company (CRBC), which constructed the Standard Gauge Railway, the Nairobi Expressway, and is also constructing the Rironi-Mau Summit toll road, has been tapped to build JKIA.

The revised project dropped plans to construct a second runway, which the government says can be deferred until traffic growth justifies the investment.

Giant artificial intelligence (AI) firms such as OpenAI and Meta face new minimum pay and mental healthcare rules in Kenya as the government seeks better working conditions for local staff, including content moderators and data annotators.

A proposed policy by the ICT Ministry says the government is developing protection guidelines for moderators, who review and remove harmful material from online platforms, and annotators, who label images, text and audio to train AI models such as ChatGPT to recognise and respond to human prompts.

The guidelines will require AI companies and outsourcing firms to comply with locally set duty-of-care standards, including safeguards against harmful content, access to mental health support and transparent contracting practices.

The government will publish occupational protection guidelines covering minimum standards for written contracts, psychosocial support, grievance mechanisms and working conditions.

For years, Kenyan workers employed by outsourcing firms serving global technology companies such as ChatGPT owner OpenAI and Facebook parent firm Meta have complained of psychological trauma and unfair payment.

‘Support the development and integration of fair and transparent pay standards for AI and other Emerging Technologies value chain workforce,’ reads the draft policy.

‘Promote the development, enforcement, and compliance with duty-of-care standards for AI and other Emerging Technologies value chain workers, including safeguards against harmful content exposure, access to mental health support, transparent contracting practices, proportionate workplace surveillance measures, and accessible grievance and redress mechanisms.’

The proposed policy further says a fair-pay-reference framework will set transparent pay benchmarks for data annotation, content moderation and AI quality evaluation roles, calibrated against international rates for equivalent work.

Companies employing Kenyan AI workers would also be required to disclose their pay structures against those benchmarks through a compliance reporting mechanism.

In the last five years, Kenya has emerged as a global hub for AI data annotation and content moderation because of its large English-speaking workforce.

Moderation and annotation are critical to the development of generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot, as they rely on human reviewers to help train algorithms to recognise prompts that could generate harmful content.

The algorithms behind these bots rely on vast amounts of human-labelled data to identify harmful content and improve their responses.

Technology companies increasingly outsource the work to specialist contractors in countries such as Kenya to reduce labour costs while creating legal distance from the employment relationship.

By outsourcing these services, tech giants significantly slash expenses by paying significantly lower wages compared to hiring domestic workforces in the US or Europe.

Markets like Kenya, India, and the Philippines have high youth unemployment, creating a large, eager pool of workers who will accept low pay.

Using external vendors also allows tech giants to distance themselves from direct responsibility for worker welfare and compensation.

Kenyan moderators and annotators working on projects for Meta and OpenAI through outsourcing company Sama, for instance, have previously raised concerns over severe psychological trauma, low pay and abrupt layoffs.

The workers say they are exposed to graphic violence, self-harm, murder, child abuse, rape, necrophilia, bestiality and incest, as well as deeply invasive, non-consensual personal video footage captured by Meta AI smart glasses, while alleging they received little or inadequate psychological support from the US-headquartered firm.

Sama has denied the allegations.

Some content moderators were paid between $1.46 (Sh189) and $3.74 (Sh484) an hour. In the US, moderators are paid an average of $21 (Sh2,719) to $27 (Sh3,496) per hour.

‘Data annotation and content moderation workers face unique occupational risks, including exposure to harmful content, insecure working conditions, and limited labour protections,’ Kenya’s draft policy says.

‘Existing frameworks provide insufficient safeguards for mental wellbeing, transparency, and employer accountability.’

The draft policy says the guidelines apply to local and international AI firms operating in Kenya.

It would be one of Africa’s most comprehensive labour protection frameworks specifically targeting AI value-chain workers.

The Geothermal Development Company (GDC) is on the spot after an audit flagged Sh15.93 billion drilling rigs that are either idle or non-functional, adding to a list of underutilised assets at the government-owned firm.

In the latest report for the year ended June 2025, the Auditor-General has questioned the value for money of the seven drilling rigs acquired several years ago, noting that three have remained out of operation for the past five years with no clear repair plan, while GDC also lacks staff capacity to operate all the rigs.

‘Review of documents provided by management in respect to the operating condition of the rigs revealed that three rigs were not in good working condition,’ the report states.

The rigs have the capacity of drilling up to seven kilometres, with GDC describing them as ‘some of the most powerful in Africa.’

GDC management says three rigs were spoiled due to vandalism of cables, obsolete parts, missing critical components and breakdown of service parts over a period of five years.

‘Management indicated that the company lacked sufficient budget to repair the rigs as well as limited human capital to operate all the seven rigs. In the circumstances, value for money spent on acquisition of the seven rigs amounting to Sh15.93 billion could not be confirmed,’ reads the audit report.

The audit also flagged GDC’s failure to insure the multi-billion-shilling equipment, exposing it to significant financial risk. However, in response, GDC said it was undertaking a risk survey before procuring insurance.

‘The company is in the process of undertaking a risk survey on its assets for insurance purposes. The company will also benchmark with the sector counterparts for best practices,’ said GDC in response to audit queries.

The audit findings on the drilling rigs form part of underutilised or idle assets at the State-owned firm tasked with exploring and drilling for geothermal steam in the country.

The report further revealed inefficiencies in supporting the drilling equipment, including bulk cementing trucks used in drilling operations.

Of the 12 trucks acquired in 2016 at a cost of Sh138.9 million, eight were found to be non-functional and had not been used since purchase.

Concerns were also raised over a stalled drilling monitoring software project initially contracted in 2014 at a cost of Sh344.5 million. The system was meant to provide real-time monitoring of drilling operations, including fleet management and CCTV integration across rigs.

However, audit verification in September last year revealed that the software had not been installed despite an advance payment of Sh137.8 million.

‘Although management indicated that milestone one on fleet management had been achieved, no evidence was provided in support of the claim,’ the auditor-general said.

GDC told auditors that the matter is under investigation by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), but noted that efforts to obtain progress updates have not yielded feedback.

‘In the circumstances, value for money incurred drilling monitoring software totaling to Sh137.8 million could not be ascertained,’ the report adds.

The year ended June 2025 saw GDC’s pre-tax loss widen to Sh1.46 billion from a loss of Sh528.2 million in the previous financial year.

However, a tax credit of Sh1.82 billion saw it post a net profit of Sh352.02 million compared to a net profit of Sh1.72 billion in the previous financial year when it enjoyed a Sh2.25 billion tax credit.

GDC was formed in 2008 as a special purpose vehicle following the enactment of the Energy Act 2006, that allowed the dividing of the country’s energy sector into five sub-sectors namely generation, transmission, distribution, regulation and policy.

The firm develops steam fields and sells geothermal steam for electricity generation to Kenya Electricity Generating Company and private investors.

The High Court has declined to freeze the government’s Sh5 trillion National Infrastructure Fund (NIF), saying a blanket suspension would interfere with executive functions and ongoing public interest projects.

Justice Patricia Nyaundi, however, ordered the Treasury to disclose certified accounts and regularly report all deposits, withdrawals and allocations pending the determination of a constitutional petition challenging NIF’s legality.

The court found the petition raises arguable constitutional questions over the fund’s legal framework but held that a blanket suspension would not strike the proper balance between constitutional oversight and ongoing public functions.

It directed the Treasury to file accounts certified by the Auditor-General within 30 days or August 24, showing money received since the start of the fund, the dates when deposits were made into Central Bank of Kenya or commercial bank accounts operated as well as every transaction, expenditure and allocation.

The government will continue filing transaction reports in court every three months from November 30 until the petition is determined, says the ruling.

About Sh20 billion from an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and another Sh244 billion from Safaricom stake sale were earmarked as seed capital for the fund.

The fund is supposed to invest in roads, irrigation projects, energy-generation plants and the country’s main airport, without increasing public debt.

The creation of the fund, which was established under the National Infrastructure Fund Act, 2026, has been challenged for lack of public participation and lack of proof on how Parliament will oversee it.

The petitioners argue that it could receive proceeds from the sale of strategic public assets outside ordinary budgetary controls.

“The issues raised touching on the constitutionality of the statutory framework, the scope of legislative authority and the alleged derogation from constitutional safeguards are neither frivolous nor insubstantial,” she said.

“They present bona fide questions that properly fall within the court’s mandate to interrogate the constitutionality of legislation.”

The petition was filed by four Kenyans led by a Nakuru-based consultant surgeon, Dr Magare Gikenyi Benjamin.

“A national public fund cannot be established under any other statutory regime, including as a limited liability company under the Companies Act,” say the petitioners in their court filings.

They further contend that “Parliament must approve the establishment of a national public fund as well as ongoing oversight of the operations of such a fund.”

The petition also questioned whether the fund complied with constitutional provisions on the distribution of functions between national and county governments, management of public finances, the Controller of Budget’s oversight role and Parliament’s constitutional responsibilities.

The government opposed the application to suspend the fund, arguing that the Act is constitutionally safe and that it has already started work.

The law provides for the fund to be managed by an independent board and a competitively recruited chief executive, with the board responsible for overseeing investments and operations.

Recently, the Treasury advertised the position of the chief executive after Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi appointed six members to the board for three-year terms effective July 8.

The government said the proceeds from the sale of the government’s 65 percent stake in KPC had already been deposited in the fund and that proceeds from the sale of the State’s 15 percent ownership in Safaricom are set to be received.

It argued that interim orders could not reverse actions already taken.

Justice Nyaundi agreed that the court was not required to determine the merits of the constitutional challenge at the early stage of the litigation.

However, she found that continued implementation of the statutory framework without interim safeguards could undermine the effectiveness of any eventual judgment.

“The statutory scheme at issue contemplates ongoing and substantial financial transactions, some of which have already occurred and others that are imminent,” said the court.

“If those processes continue unchecked while constitutional questions remain unresolved, the petitioners’ challenge may be overtaken by events,” it added.

Even so, the court declined to halt the law’s operation.

“The balance of convenience does not favour a blanket prohibition. Rather, it favours ensuring that any ongoing activities of the fund are conducted transparently within public view and subject to constitutional safeguards,” the court said.

The court directed parties to prepare the petition for hearing after the respondents file outstanding responses and any supplementary affidavits.

Seven months ago, Asahi Group Holdings agreed to buy Diageo’s controlling stake in East African Breweries – a $ 2.3 billion transaction, one of the largest cross-border deals the local market has seen in years, and one from which the Exchequer stood to gain roughly Sh40 billion in capital gains tax alone. Seven months on, the deal remains stuck.

The latest development is that the competition authority has escalated the matter to the Attorney-General – an implicit admission that the regulator itself is unsure of its own footing.

This is not a story about a regulator rigorously following the law. It is about a regulator that appears unable to make a decision.

Consider the record. The Competition Authority of Kenya first proposed a two-year timeline for settling a pecuniary penalty, then revised it to seven days.

It required that payments due to government be parked in an escrow account – a demand that sits uneasily with the Public Finance Management framework the state itself is bound by.

It tried to compress an agreed 40-day settlement window with complainants down to seven days, despite not being party to those settlement agreements in the first place.

Late in the process, it floated raising the penalty by as much as sevenfold, after months of negotiation had already taken place.

And it introduced, seemingly from nowhere, a demand to retain 10 percent of the entire transaction value in escrow – a condition that exists in no statute.

Each of these might be defensible in isolation. Together, they describe a pattern: an administration of competition law improvising in real time, on a transaction of national significance, months after the parties believed they had reached an understanding with the regulator.

Compounding the chaos is the fact that the Competition Appeals Tribunal – the body where parties can challenge decisions of the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) – has been virtually inactive since mid-2025, because the terms of its chairperson and key members expired several months ago. The board currently has only one member instead of seven.

Meanwhile, the Capital Markets Authority granted a mandatory takeover offer exemption, only for its implementation to be suspended by a court order sought by a third party. Litigation has multiplied across court stations, prompting the Judiciary itself to intervene and consolidate the files in Nairobi to stop what increasingly looked like forum shopping.

A coordinated campaign by fund managers has sought to reopen the commercial logic of a privately negotiated shareholder transfer altogether, months after signing.

Here is the question every serious investor is now entitled to ask before committing capital to Kenya: if I sign a merger agreement today, is there any credible basis for expecting it to close within six months? On the evidence of this transaction, the honest answer is no – not because of the underlying commercial logic, but because the process for approving it has no fixed floor.

The rules can be renegotiated by the regulator after the fact, unilaterally, and the goalposts can move again the moment the parties think they have reached them.

This is the real cost of the Asahi-Diageo saga, and it is far larger than the Sh40 billion in tax revenue at stake.

Clearly; the single greatest deterrent to foreign direct investment in Kenya is not tax policy, not infrastructure, not even the cost of capital.

It is the insensate instability of our competition regulation, and the absence of honour and good faith on the part of regulators who are supposed to be the guarantors of a predictable process.

Investors do not require regulators to say yes.

They require regulators to mean what they say when they say anything at all. A regulator that agrees to a 40-day settlement window and then unilaterally shortens it to seven; that agrees to a two-year penalty schedule and then demands payment within a week; that negotiates a penalty figure and then proposes multiplying it sevenfold without new facts to justify it – that regulator has broken the one thing capital actually prices: certainty.

The Asahi-Diageo transaction was supposed to be the easy case – two willing multinational parties, a company with no pending disputes with the competition authority, and a deal structure that preserved local listing, local jobs, and local management.

If even this deal cannot move predictably through Kenya’s regulatory architecture, no foreign board of directors evaluating an African market entry will conclude that theirs will fare better.

Regulators must be bound by the timelines and conditions they themselves set, not free to revise them under pressure from whichever constituency shouts loudest that month.

Rebound in the bond and equities market has triggered talent wars among stockbrokers seeking to grow their market share and take a larger slice of revenues from trading of the securities.

The wars, mainly targeting traders and research analysts, have been earnest in the last six months as the bourse sustained improved performance that has lured new listings and investors.

It has seen nearly a dozen seasoned traders and market analysts change employers together with an increase in internal promotions to retain talent.

Capital A Investment Bank, which maintained its leadership in Kenya’s bond market with a 22 percent market share at the end of June, has strengthened its research capability while investing in internal talent development as competition for experienced professionals intensifies.

“When markets are performing well, there is always a tendency for firms to re-equip their dealing desks,” said Linus Kang’ara, chief executive officer of Capital A Investment Bank.

“Rather than looking externally, we chose to strengthen and retain our existing talent by giving them greater visibility across both local and international markets, while backing them with a robust research capability. As part of that strategy, we appointed seasoned economist Churchill Ogutu to lead our Research Department,” he said.

Mr Ogutu joined Capital A in April from IC Group, an investment bank with regional operations, following the exit of Ronnie Chokaa as a senior research analyst. Mr Chokaa joined Sterling Capital Limited as a fixed income trader.

Kestrel Capital, which is under new leadership following a management buyout last year, has strengthened its equities desk with new hires. Gerry Ndung’u was poached from Pergamon Investment Bank while Anne Musyoka was brought in from Dry Associates. The stock brokerage also hired Caleb Nyangao and Kenneth Mutuura from the Nairobi International Financial Centre (NIFC).

Kestrel Capital traded shares worth Sh19.5 billion in the six months to June which was more than thrice the Sh5.9 billion traded in the same period last year. Its market share however shrunk due to the Sh204.3 billion bulk trade of Safaricom shares from the government to Vodacom executed by KCB Investment Bank and SBG Securities.

This trade lifted the two to be the top ranking in terms of market share with SBG Securities moving from second to first position with a 34.9 percent market share.

The trade propelled KCB Investment Bank from position 18 to second with a market share of 32.07 percent up from 0.78 percent. Kweli Capital which recently acquired Old Mutual Securities is seeking talent for its research desk as it seeks to revamp its trading capabilities.

Conventional banks have also moved into investment banking and fund management in a bid to keep money from corporate savers in their vaults. Customers are no longer just looking for a safe place to keep their money but also a return.

This has further fueled the talent wars with most commercial teams looking for players who are ready to go to market and grab the moment and not greenhorns. CIC Group, Ecobank Kenya and KCB Group are currently in the market for portfolio managers.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange -as measured by market capitalisation- was up 27.8 percent, or Sh817.2 billion in six months to reach a record high of Sh3.76 trillion as at June 30.

This was boosted by the listing of Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) on March 11, which was the first Initial Public Offering in 18 years, and Family Bank Limited on June 23.

This has resulted in increased participation by investors, with the value of equities traded in the six months to June growing more than five-fold to Sh644.5 billion up from Sh112 billion same time last year.

The value of bonds traded over the six months to June rose by 22.4 percent to 3.4 trillion compared to Sh2.78 trillion traded over a similar period last year.

The Treasury has cut its target for net domestic borrowing for the fiscal year ending next June by Sh132 billion, reducing the risk of crowding out the private sector in access to credit and easing pressure on borrowing costs.

The target for net domestic financing has been lowered to Sh898 billion from Sh1.03 trillion, just a month after the 2026/27 Budget Statement was presented on June 11.

The Treasury will instead borrow more from foreign markets to offset the reduction in domestic borrowing from banks, pension funds and insurance firms through Treasury bills and bonds, underscoring improved prospects for securing external financing.

The cut in domestic borrowing is expected to increase the pool of funds available in banks for lending to households and businesses.

It will also strengthen the government’s efforts to lower borrowing costs by reducing competition for funds in the domestic market, allowing banks to lower deposit and lending rates.

The government’s overall borrowing target for the fiscal year remains unchanged at Sh1.145 trillion.

“The resulting fiscal deficit, including grants, is Sh1.145 trillion (5.5 percent of GDP) and will be financed by net external financing of Sh247.2 billion (1.2 percent of GDP) and net domestic financing of Sh898 billion (4.3 percent of GDP),” the National Treasury said in its latest disclosures.

The Treasury had initially planned to finance the deficit through Sh116.2 billion in net external borrowing – equivalent to 0.6 percent of GDP – and Sh1.03 trillion in net domestic borrowing, equivalent to 4.9 percent of GDP.

The increase in external financing reflects improved prospects for raising funds abroad as the Treasury seeks to diversify its borrowing sources.

The diversification of external funding is aimed at improving debt sustainability by broadening the investor base, extending debt maturities and lowering financing costs.

“The government is evaluating opportunities to access new and diversified international capital markets. This includes the potential issuance of Samurai bonds in the Japanese market and Panda bonds in the Chinese domestic market,” Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said on June 11.

“By tapping into these markets, the government stands to benefit from deep and diversified pools of capital, secure potentially competitive financing terms, and promote currency diversification within the debt portfolio, thereby reducing reliance on traditional funding sources.”

The lower target for domestic financing is expected to ease pressure on credit markets and support continued growth in private sector lending.

Private sector credit has recovered over the past 20 months, growing 9.3 percent in May 2026 compared with two percent a year earlier.

The recovery has been supported by successive cuts in the Central Bank Rate (CBR), which has fallen from 13 percent in 2024 to 8.75 percent.

Average lending rates declined to 14.5 percent in May 2026 from 15.4 percent a year earlier.

Credit growth has remained strong in key sectors of the economy, particularly trade, agriculture, and building and construction.

The revised financing plan will hold if the Exchequer meets its tax revenue targets or contains public spending.

In previous years, revenue shortfalls have widened the fiscal deficit, forcing the government to borrow more domestically.

For instance, the Treasury exceeded its net domestic borrowing target by Sh161.7 billion in the fiscal year ended June 2026.

Net domestic borrowing totalled Sh1.135 trillion, against an approved target of Sh973.6 billion.

Of this amount, Sh993.1 billion was raised through the sale of Treasury bills and bonds by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

Talent, Emmanuel Mugo says, has never been the hardest part of acting.

Rejection is.

Before working on the second season of The Agency, the American spy thriller television series featuring Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere, Mugo spent years navigating failed auditions, financial uncertainty and long stretches without work.

Those setbacks, he says, became the foundation of a career that has taken him from a Tahidi High extra to one of Kenya’s most experienced stunt performers on international productions.

“There has been a lot of learning, a lot of connecting with fellow artistes and learning from them, but there has also been rejection. You can be very good and still not get the role.”

For many aspiring actors, rejection is interpreted as failure. For Mugo, it eventually became part of the job description.

“That experience years has helped me build resilience and self-acceptance. Even if you’ve been rejected, you have to keep moving.”

Unlike traditional professions where progression follows a predictable ladder, acting often means long periods of waiting punctuated by short bursts of intense activity. There are months when projects flow and months when phones simply stop ringing.

“That’s why diversification is key. Having a side hustle is important in this industry.”

While many know him as an actor, Mugo has steadily expanded his skill set over the years, becoming a stunt performer, stunt coordinator and assistant director. Today, he co-runs a company known as Stunt It alongside fellow stunt performer Mickey Stunts.

His entry into stunt work came more than a decade ago through veteran Kenyan stunt coordinator Charles Kembero.

“He got me into the first season of Sense8, trained me on the basics and we kicked off from there. Without Kembero, honestly, The Agency would not exist for me. Sense8 was my first stunt gig ever.”

Mugo’s fascination with acting began in childhood while watching the 1990s action series Renegade starring Lorenzo Lamas.

“I really wanted to do what he was doing,” he recalls.

His TV opportunity came in 2012 as an extra in the Kenyan teen drama, Tahidi High. It would take another 13 years before he found himself working on The Agency.

From there came commercials, supporting roles and more auditions.

“Every opportunity and every place you go, you make sure you leave a lasting impression because you’re only as good as your last gig.”

The transition into stunt coordination happened almost by accident.

After working on productions including Mission to Rescue and the Maisha Magic drama Kina, Mugo began taking on more responsibility for action sequences and eventually coordinated one of the show’s major stunt scenes involving weapons and a wedding shootout.

By the time The Agency came calling, Mugo was a multi-skilled creative capable of contributing in several departments. He joined the production through the stunt team rather than a traditional audition process.

Produced by Hollywood star George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures for Paramount+, The Agency is among the highest-profile international productions to film in Kenya in recent years. The espionage thriller became Showtime’s most-streamed new series ever following its launch, drawing 5.1 million viewers globally during its opening weekend.

Mugo worked as a stunt double, stunt driver during military convoy scenes and also as a militia member.

He believes the opportunity was not the result of one lucky break but years of networking and preparation. More directors and filmmakers want to engage with me now, not just for stunts but for acting as well,” he says.

Working on an international production offered a glimpse into the scale and organisation that large-budget filmmaking demands.

“The difference is gigantic. One international project could be the equivalent of even five local productions. The organisation was amazing. You learn how people carry themselves on set, how departments work together and how teams manage energy without burning people out.”

For him, the experience has also reinforced the value of creative work being compensated at levels that reflect the skill and effort involved.

“It’s a good feeling getting paid how it’s supposed to be for doing something that you really like,” he says.

Exposure to international productions fundamentally changed how Mugo approaches his own work.

“Filmmaking is not easy. You may watch something that lasts one minute but the amount of manpower, preparation, resources and time that goes into creating that one minute is incredible.”

Yet despite the production’s international pedigree, Mugo rejects the notion that Kenyan talent cannot compete globally.

“We have brilliant camera operators, stunt performers and technicians. The talent exists. What needs to change is how we consume our own content and how we distribute it.”

Scenes from The Agency were filmed in Nairobi and Kisumu, creating opportunities for local actors, technicians, stunt performers and production crews to work alongside international teams. He points to a familiar frustration within Kenya’s film ecosystem – local productions often receive praise at festivals and premieres but struggle to find audiences afterwards.

At one point, Mugo almost walked away from the industry entirely. After spending close to two years in the corporate world, he realised something was missing.

“I had completely abandoned my craft,” he says. “It wasn’t bad and I learnt a lot, but it just wasn’t for me.”

The decision to leave the security of corporate life and return to acting remains one of the biggest risks he has taken: “When things go quiet in this industry, it really goes quiet. But I decided to stay with acting.’

For young Kenyan actors dreaming of international productions, his advice is remarkably simple.

“Do not get tired of rejection. Make peace with it because it will build resilience.”

That conviction traces back to a memory from his school days.

He remembers standing alone on an empty stage after a school performance, looking out into the hall and making a quiet promise to himself to pursue acting.

The next chapter, he says, is to help establish a stunt college in Kenya, create better pay structures for performers and build institutions that protect artists.

“You go to film festivals and launches, watch amazing productions and then ask yourself, where can people actually watch this? What platform is it on? Can ordinary people find it? We need more support and investment in what we are doing, and a lot of different players need to come together.”

China social media company TikTok removed 48,739 accounts suspected to belong to users under the age of 13 in the quarter to March 2026, marking a 47.98 percent drop compared to the preceding quarter’s 93,704-signalling the gains of previous purges on child users.

Children aged 13 and over are allowed to use the TikTok platform, which is highly popular with teenagers.

‘TikTok removed 48,739 accounts suspected to belong to users under the age of 13, a violation of its Community Guidelines, highlighting the platform’s commitment to protecting younger users online,’ the platform said.

The social media company disclosed that overall, it removed 884,591 videos in Kenya for violating its community guidelines.

This is a jump from the previous quarter to December, when 820,552 videos from the country were taken down, pointing to an increasing generation of content from Kenya that does not meet its safety rules and a heavy reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) moderation tools to police content.

TikTok’s Community Guidelines ban content that promotes violence, criminal activity, hate speech, harassment, or abuse. Users are not allowed to post material that encourages violence.

‘In the first quarter of 2026, TikTok removed 884,591 videos for violating its Community Guidelines in Kenya. 99.7 percent of these videos were proactively removed before anyone reported them, while 96.3 percent were taken down within 24 hours of posting,’ said TikTok.

‘These figures underscore TikTok’s continued investment in advanced detection systems and rapid response mechanisms designed to limit the spread of harmful content.’

Social media companies, including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, are turning to AI-powered content moderation to detect, flag, and remove harmful content, such as graphic violence and hate speech.

These systems utilise machine learning and natural language processing to handle vast volumes of data, reducing the burden on human teams. While AI accelerates the process, human moderators are mostly still used for final, nuanced, or borderline decisions.

‘Automated removals, including those by AI, now make up more than 96 percent of total removals,’ the social media platform said.

In Kenya, TikTok interrupted 103,847 LIVE rooms for violation of guidelines in the quarter to March 2026.

The platform recorded a proactive removal rate of 99.7 percent in Kenya in the three months to March 2026. Proactive removal means identifying and removing a video before it’s reported, which was significantly high, aided by the use of AI.

TikTok removed 96.3 percent of the harmful videos within 24 hours of posting on the platform.

‘In Quarter 1 of 2026, TikTok removed 14,261 videos under our policy for edited media and AI-generated content (AIGC),’ the firm added.

TikTok requires creators to label realistic AIGC. The site forbids content related to human trafficking, sexual exploitation, or abuse of adults or children.

While TikTok welcomes political conversations, remarks that create or pose a substantial danger of harm are removed.

Harassment, bullying, and doxing are also prohibited.

To safeguard users’ mental health, content that depicts suicide, self-harm, risky stunts, or eating disorders is prohibited.

Additionally, TikTok prohibits graphic violence, animal abuse, and explicit sexual content. It also eliminates false information, especially about elections, public health, and civic processes, and mandates that AI-generated or significantly modified media be disclosed.