Category: Business Daily

Twice every week at one of the country’s largest flower farms in Naivasha, crop scouts walk through greenhouse rows of flower seedlings, pausing every few metres to key data into tablets as they inspect each bed for signs of pests and diseases.

The software powering the exercise is called Bluleaf, an integrated pest management system built by Kenyan technology firm Data Science Limited. The company is the brainchild of computer scientist Linet Kwamboka Nyang’au.

In the flower industry, the software is helping growers reduce pesticide use, improve yields and meet some of the world’s toughest export standards. Crop scouts carry android smartphones and tablets loaded with the app as they move through flower beds looking for the earliest signs of aphids, blackflies, mites, moths and other pests or diseases.

They count the exact number of pests spotted in a particular bed, records the severity of infestation in every section and captures the information in the application. The entire exercise takes about three minutes before a scout moves on to the next section.

All the information is uploaded to a central dashboard where the farm generates weekly analytical reports. The software is supplied under a licensing agreement costing $40 (Sh5,200) per month for a single user account.

Beyond simply recording field observations, the platform maps the scale of infestation across the farm, allowing growers to target interventions instead of spraying pesticides across entire greenhouses, which is both costly and environmentally damaging.

“With this data on different flower species going back to different seasons all these years, it is also a good asset for our research operations. It helps when we are testing new pest control mechanisms,” Catherine Marufu, a crop scout at the farm, told BDLife.

The historical database also captures how sensitive different flower varieties are to particular pests, helping growers decide which species are best suited for different conditions.

What began as a digital data collection tool has gradually evolved into an artificial intelligence-powered system.

Using more than 10 years of accumulated field data, Bluleaf can assess the health of a flower, identify the pest affecting it, determine the stage of infestation and recommend the most appropriate pesticide.

The AI model also predicts pest patterns based on historical outbreaks, enabling farmers to prepare before infestations spread.

One of the earliest adopters of the technology was Florensis, a multinational flower propagation company that has been using Bluleaf since 2015 at its Naivasha farm.

The 27-year-old company specialises in producing flower cuttings for propagation rather than harvested flowers. It has production and breeding locations in Kenya, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Germany and Portugal, with Bluleaf deployed across these subsidiaries.

For a business of that scale, timely pest intelligence is critical. Florensis grows more than 480 flower species, and on a typical harvesting day, the farm produces about 900,000 flower cuttings. Peak periods such as January can see production rise to six million cuttings daily, according to scouts at the farm.

The company’s main clientele is in the European Union (EU), where compliance with pesticide regulations is among the strictest globally.

Kenya is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of cut flowers and the leading supplier to the EU, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the lucrative bloc’s flower imports. The industry remains one of the country’s leading foreign exchange earners.

But to access the EU market, exporters must comply with strict pesticide maximum residue limits (MRLs), plant health regulations and detailed traceability requirements covering every chemical application.

The bloc also tightly regulates pests such as False Codling Moth and thrips, while rose exporters are required to comply with the Rose Systems Approach, which prescribes pest reduction and chemical management protocols.

Every pesticide application must be documented, including what chemical was used, when it was applied, where it was applied and the dosage.

As such, Bluleaf’s detailed records help simplify that compliance process while reducing the need for chemical spraying.

“We can go up to a month without using sprays. By the time we consider a chemical spray, we have already tried cleaner options such as bioextracts, light insecticide sprays like natural pyrethrin and predatory mites that naturally consume common plant pests,” said Monicah Ingaji, an agronomy assistant at Florensis.

She adds that the platform has made the twice-weekly health scouting exercise faster than the manual data collection methods previously used, which were tedious and offered little value for decision-making.

The financial impact of such data-led decision-making is substantial for these large commercial flower farms.

Industry estimates suggest that reducing pesticide use by about 80 per cent, for instance, could save a large grower roughly Sh3 million every month.

But for Ms Nyang’au, the technology’s biggest impact extends beyond operational savings.

“I look at our impact beyond the monetary costs the flower firms are cutting by using the tool,” she told BDLife.

“There is the human impact with the workers and neighbouring communities, health-wise. Heavy chemical use affects the air quality, waterways and water systems, and ends up in our food systems as well,” she says.

Unlike many technology start-ups chasing venture capital, Data Science has been bootstrapped since its founding.

“It was a choice I made,’ Ms Nyang’au says of funding the company with her personal savings. ‘Of course, when you look around, and your peers are raising millions of dollars to fund their businesses, it looks very lucrative. But when you are funded, even by grants or venture capital, especially at the beginning, that would have denied me what I wanted to do.”

The University of Nairobi alumnus says she wanted to build a sustainable company while balancing family life.

“I also wanted to start a family and have children. So there was that balance. If I’m reporting to someone else and I have financial targets, that changes things,’ she says.

‘I just kept a small team working towards profitability. For me, it has always been clients before chasing funders. Thankfully, it worked out. We are fully customer dependent.”

That approach, she says, proved valuable during the Covid-19 pandemic when many start-ups struggled of folded up.

‘We lost a lot of business as some of our clients closed down and others stopped on-boarding new businesses. But as directors, we were able to sustain the company and maintain our team. At no point has anyone gone unpaid, and the only salary delay we have ever had was 10 days.”

“I like keeping it lean and allowing ourselves to grow organically. We might not be making millions every month, but we also don’t owe anyone anything. It’s a healthy, sustainable operation.”

Ms Nyang’au says her advice to entrepreneurs is to have a separate income for the family, especially at the early stages when their companies are not generating much revenue yet.

‘You still have to pay your people, and it is why I keep my consultancy work,” she says. She has consulted for the World Bank, the United Nations and international development organisations.

She also believes founders need to remain adaptable. “Structures are great, but sometimes structures are also limiting. If I didn’t occasionally mix my money and the company’s money, that would limit me. I’ve learned to be very dynamic and agile.”

The third cohort of commissioners at the National Land Commission (NLC) assumed office in March. Having settled into their roles, they must now tackle the many unresolved public land issues facing the country – and, crucially, be seen to be doing so.

The NLC carries significant historical baggage. It is one of the institutions that powerful political interests resisted from the outset.

It was removed from the final draft of the Constitution before parliamentary debate, only to be reinstated after sustained pressure from stakeholders.

Later, after the first commissioners had been vetted and approved, their appointment was delayed until a High Court petition compelled the President to gazette them.

Kenyans therefore fought hard and spent considerable public resources to secure the Commission’s place in the country’s governance architecture. They expected it to safeguard public land, stop illegal allocations and address historical injustices.

That history should guide the current commissioners. Their constitutional independence and security of tenure were designed to enable them to act without fear or favour.

While the Commission has continued with routine responsibilities – including processing allotment letters, valuing land acquired for public projects, developing technical guidelines and conducting research – the public expects much more.

It must make tangible progress in reviewing illegally or irregularly allocated public land and resolving historical land injustices, whose timelines Parliament has already extended.

Equally important, the Commission must become a visible voice in national debates involving public land. Its silence on several high-profile disputes has been striking. During the controversy over the excision of land belonging to Kenyatta University for reallocation, the Commission was largely absent. Similar silence accompanied disputes over proposed developments in Karura and Ngong forests.

Today, public concern over developments in Imenti Forest continues to grow, while the eviction of settlers from KMC and Portland Cement land in Athi River also passed without a strong intervention from the Commission.

Such absences weaken public confidence in the institution charged with protecting public land.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has recently recovered public land belonging to KBC, Posta and other state institutions from powerful individuals. Such victories would carry greater weight if they were accompanied by visible leadership from the National Land Commission.

Most urgently, the Commission must address the recent court ruling on the Ruaraka land saga, in which it approved Sh1.5 billion in compensation for land later found to be public.

A clear explanation is essential. Without one, public perception may shift from viewing the Commission as a guardian of public land to questioning whether it was complicit in its loss.

The National Treasury recorded a wider Sh90.1 billion revenue miss in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026, despite undertaking major cuts to its resources target for the period.

Fresh data from the exchequer shows total revenue reached Sh3.168 trillion for the fiscal year, falling shy of the Sh3.2590 trillion target for both ordinary revenue and ministerial appropriations.

Ordinary revenue or taxes recorded the widest shortfall at Sh53.5 billion. Ordinary revenue collections totaled Sh2.587 trillion, which was below the target of Sh2.64 trillion.

Appropriations in aid, which represent collections by ministries, State departments and agencies, were off the mark by Sh36.6 billion at Sh581.7 billion against a Sh618.3 billion target.

In contrast, the prior revenue underperformance was Sh62 billion as taxes missed the mark by Sh76 billion but appropriations over performed by Sh14 billion in the fiscal year to June 2025.

The revenue underperformance for the period to June 2026 underlines difficulties in domestic revenue mobilization, which includes the setting of overambitious targets.

The underperformance in domestic revenues usually resulted in a wider fiscal deficit, which was funded mainly through borrowing from local credit markets.

‘Total revenues amounted to Sh3.168 trillion, resulting in an underperformance of Sh90.1 billion mainly on account of shortfall registered in ordinary revenue of Sh53.5 billion,’ the National Treasury said.

‘Ministerial appropriation in aid collection at Sh581.7 billion was below target by Sh36.6 billion.’

Most tax revenue receipts, including import duty, pay as you earn (Paye) and value added tax (VAT), met the revised target, with excise duty being the only outlier, having recorded a Sh1.5 billion shortfall.

The bulk of the underperformance in ordinary revenues was recorded under non-tax resources, which cover penalties and levies applied and collected by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Receipts from non-tax revenues were posted at Sh125.3 billion against a target of Sh183.2 billion.

The underperformance in domestic revenue mobilisation from taxes and appropriations in aid resulted in increased local borrowing to plug a wider deficit, which was recorded at 7.1 percent of GDP.

‘From the financing side, total financing for the fiscal year 2025/26 amounted to Sh1.34 trillion or 7.1 percent of GDP. The deficit was financed by net domestic financing of Sh1.135 trillion or six percent of GDP and net foreign financing of Sh205.5 billion.

Net domestic borrowing overshot the target by Sh161.7 billion.

Ordinary revenue is projected at Sh2.985 trillion for the financial year that commenced on July 1, 2026.

Total revenue for the period is estimated at Sh3.629 trillion, including Sh644 billion in ministerial appropriations-in-aid (A-i-A).

Despite the higher revenue target for the new cycle, domestic resource mobilisation will be impacted by new macroeconomic shocks, including the emergence of the US-Israel war on Iran, which has sent local pump prices higher.

The government has offered concessions to help contain consumer pain, including halving VAT on petroleum products to eight percent from 16 percent over the next six months, resulting in an estimated revenue hole of Sh32 billion.

The National Treasury has further mulled a revision of Paye bands in September 2026, to help increase consumer disposable incomes/spending.

The exchequer has trimmed its economic growth forecast for 2026 from an initial 5.3 percent to five percent.

Kenya’s policy disruptions have intensified as President William Ruto’s government attempts to pacify citizens amid mounting economic pressure, partly fueled by global tensions stemming from the US-Israel war with Iran.

Rising pressures have triggered shifts in policy responses, including fuel tax cuts, suspension of power tariff adjustments and proposed reinstatement of universal higher education funding by the State.

Analysts said the policy disruptions signal attempts by the State to appease households squeezed by sustained inflation pressure ahead of the 2027 re-election campaigns.

‘It’s expected, every five years, what we normally see is that the economic policy of Kenya is more or less hijacked, conveniently to favour the government in power, more or less engaging Kenyans so that they can be reconsidered for the election,’ Karaya Mokaya, member of Public Finance and Tax Committee at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) told Business Daily.

‘So it’s a deliberate move by the government just to woo and to pursue Kenyans with what you could call very attractive economic policies that are not necessarily anchored within the structure of the economic policy to persuade Kenyans to reconsider the government in power for the election. So the risk we run is that of borrowing more because of increased expenditure,’ he said.

In the latest shift, President Ruto revealed plans for full government funding for all students who qualify for university education-a move that would mark an about-turn from a controversial model he introduced in 2023 as concerns, especially from poor households mounted.

‘Now we have in Parliament the final version of how we’re going to make higher education universal. It will not matter the background of any child in Kenya; it will matter how good they are. Going into the future, we’ve been trying to grapple with how we fund our higher education,’ he said on Tuesday at State House, Nairobi, during presentation of a proposal on developing a new vision for Kenya from a team of experts.

Students and guardians have complained about the funding model introduced in 2023, saying it has made them unable to pursue courses of their choice.

‘We tried the Differentiated Unit Cost [model], it didn’t work because it made most of our universities almost close down; because while we promised 80 percent funding, we went down to 40 percent and most universities suffered,’ President Ruto said.

‘We’ve worked on what we thought was equity where we said parents will contribute a small portion and then [government] will give a small portion of loan, a small portion of scholarship; that creates equity, but it’s not good enough. Now we’re moving to universal under the amendments we’ve taken to Parliament,’ said the President.

This comes a fortnight after the government extended a reduction in Value Added Tax (VAT) on petroleum products for another three months to mid-October 2026 to cushion households and businesses from price volatility.

The State in April cut VAT on petroleum products from 16 percent to eight percent for three months, after crude oil prices surged because of the Middle East war. Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi said the government would deploy a subsidy to the tune of Sh945 million to sustain current price levels in the July-August fuel pricing cycle.

In another disruption, the Energy ministry on June 3, 2026, also suspended the proposed review of retail electricity tariffs from July 1, 2026, maintaining the current rates to protect consumers from higher costs. The suspended application by Kenya Power sought to raise base tariffs by up to 31.8 percent to generate extra revenues for network upgrades and other state utility projects.

“Following consultations within government and key stakeholders in the sector, the retail electricity tariff review application submitted in March this year by KPLC has been withdrawn,” Mr Wandayi said.

Mr Mokaya, however, noted that the concessions are not financially sustainable in the long term. ‘So, more borrowing then could mean that we could expect a supplementary budget soon to try and close any gaps in the current budget,’ he said.

Kenya’s annual inflation remained sticky at 6.4 percent in June 2026, a marginal drop from 6.7percent in May. The slight slowdown was primarily driven by a drop in the cost of transport and food items , though year-on-year price changes remained heavily impacted by earlier global energy cost increases.

Hustler Fund borrowers can now use Safaricom Bonga Points to repay State-backed loans as the government seeks to improve collections amid rising defaults.

The Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF), popularly known as the Hustler Fund, has notified borrowers via text messages that they can now clear outstanding loans using Safaricom’s loyalty points.

Fund Chief Executive Officer Henry Tanui said the initiative had already recovered Sh3 million within its first week.

“The idea is that if there are other convenient options for borrowers to repay, then we should make them available,” Mr Tanui told Business Daily.

A spot check shows that five Bonga Points are currently equivalent to Sh1, meaning a borrower would need about 2,500 points to repay a Sh500 Hustler Fund loan. Safaricom, however, says the value of Bonga Points is not fixed and depends on historical redemption patterns.

The telecom operator’s latest annual report shows customers held Bonga Points worth Sh3.6 billion as of March 2026.

The repayment initiative is part of broader efforts to strengthen loan recoveries after the Treasury stopped allocating fresh funding to the Hustler Fund in the current financial year, signalling a shift towards making the scheme self-sustaining.

Government support has steadily declined from Sh20 billion at the fund’s launch to Sh300 million in the financial year ended June 2026.

By March this year, the fund had disbursed Sh83 billion in loans, of which Sh71 billion had been repaid, according to the State Department for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

The scheme has also come under scrutiny from the Auditor-General, who reported that 104,631 loans worth Sh116.5 million were issued to borrowers whose national identity card numbers were missing from the customer database, raising concerns over credit assessment and verification controls.

Launched by the Kenya Kwanza administration, the Hustler Fund aims to expand access to affordable credit for borrowers excluded from formal banking. Authorities continue to encourage prompt repayment by linking it to higher borrowing limits.

The National Treasury will table legislation in September to reduce payroll taxes, bowing to growing public pressure over shrinking pay slips following a series of mandatory deductions, including the 1.5 percent Affordable Housing Levy and contributions to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF).

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said the proposed reforms were left out of the Finance Bill, 2026, because public participation generated wider proposals than the government’s initial plan to raise the tax-free income threshold from Sh24,000 to Sh30,000.

Instead, the Treasury will consolidate the proposals into a separate Tax Amendments Bill expected to be introduced in September, less than a year before the August 2027 General Election.

“I know that the concerns have been on pay slips. Next month, I am embarking on public engagement on how to reduce the tax burden on pay slips,” Mr Mbadi said on Wednesday.

“We proposed one option, but we also received proposals including reducing PAYE by five percentage points across the board. By the end of August, we want to consolidate all the suggestions and, with the agreement of President Ruto, introduce legislation in September so that Kenyans get some relief on their pay slips.”

The announcement marks a significant policy shift after the Treasury had repeatedly resisted cutting Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxes, arguing the move would reduce government revenue by about Sh35 billion annually.

Parliament has also piled pressure on the Treasury to overhaul the PAYE system.

During consideration of the Finance Bill, 2026, the National Assembly’s Finance and National Planning Committee recommended raising monthly personal tax relief from Sh2,400 to Sh3,000 while reviewing all income tax bands to ease the burden on salaried workers.

Committee chairperson Kuria Kimani said deductions for SHIF and the Affordable Housing Levy had significantly increased the tax burden on employees.

“The committee recommends that the National Treasury overhauls all the tax bands. The Treasury has the necessary data and analytical tools to undertake a comprehensive review,” he said.

The proposal received broad support during public participation from organisations including the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK), the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), Deloitte, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and Grant Thornton.

The stakeholders proposed reducing the entry tax rate to 10 per cent on the first Sh30,000 of monthly income, 15 percent on the next Sh30,000 and capping the highest rate at 30 per cent for monthly earnings above Sh500,000.

Currently, Kenya’s PAYE structure has five tax bands, with the highest rate of 35 per cent applying to monthly incomes exceeding Sh800,000.

ICPAK argued that the existing tax bands are too narrow, exposing relatively low-income earners to higher tax rates sooner than intended.

“The current PAYE bands are narrow, meaning higher tax rates apply at relatively lower income levels. This places an unfair burden on lower-income earners,” the institute said.

The Treasury’s earlier reluctance to reduce PAYE stemmed from concerns over revenue losses at a time when government finances have come under pressure from global economic shocks.

How long do customer insights gather dust in the systems of your organisation before anyone acts on them? Consider a typical Sacco environment where a member’s loan application stalls for weeks.

The proof of their frustration exists across three corporate systems: a timestamp in the core banking database, an angry call log in the customer relationship management software, and a ticket in the complaints registry.

The data is all there, but because the departments don’t communicate with each other, a decision that should take less than five days ends up taking more than three weeks.

Ultimately, the disgruntled member shares the experience with their chama, and the Sacco ends up losing 10 members whom it never thought it was at risk of losing.

The same pattern shows up in a hospital that keeps readmitting a patient whose warning signs were sitting in three unconnected records, or a distributor whose shrinking orders were visible for months before anyone called the retailer.

The cost never appears on any dashboard, because no single system holds the whole story. It is spread across several, and the organisation reads them one at a time.

This is the real AI opportunity for African enterprises. Not chatbots. Not generated content. The opportunity is the insight your organisation already collects and never acts on.

Most leaders think they have a data problem. What they have is a distance problem, the gap between what the organisation knows and what the organisation does.

Closing that distance requires five actions. First, spot the customer’s pain. Second, pinpoint where the workflow breaks. Third, examine the data you already hold. Fourth, embed AI at that exact step. And fifth, define the one number that proves it worked.

The order matters. Most AI projects start at the fourth step, embedding a tool, then later looking for a problem it might solve. You should not introduce new technology before the first three steps are handled.

Every system in your organisation is already writing down what your customers complain about, so you don’t need more systems to collect more data, you need an AI tool to help you narrow down on what the complaints are.

For the Sacco, AI would flag any loan application idle for more than 48 hours, classify why it stalled, and inform the member before they call. It doesn’t replace a banker. It simply reads, at scale and without tiring, the signals three systems were already writing down.

The writer is an AI transformation partner, global speaker, and author of Scaling Impact. Based in Nairobi, he advises boards and executives across Africa on turning artificial intelligence into measurable business value

The number of Kenyans unable to afford a healthy diet has increased by 9.6 million over the past eight years on costly meals and reduced disposable income.

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a United Nations agency, says 43.9 million Kenyans cannot afford a healthy diet, up from 34.3 million in 2017.

This emerges in a period when the cost of food has surged in an economic setting where workers’ disposable income has also fallen, as employers’ pay increases fail to keep pace with inflation.

Workers’ purchasing power has declined by up to 12 percent over the past five years, on the back of rising taxes, multiple statutory deductions, and the high cost of living, according to Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) estimates.

The statutory deductions cited by KBA include PAYE, the 1.5 percent Affordable Housing Levy, a 2.75 percent contribution to the Social Health Insurance Fund and higher National Social Security Fund contributions, which now top Sh6,480 per month for higher earners.

Workers have seen their real wages drop to Sh56,566 last year from Sh62,256 in 2020.

The share of Kenyans struggling to access a healthy diet has increased to 76.3 percent of the population from 69.8 percent in 2017.

In East Africa, Kenya fared worse compared to the neighbouring countries. Rwanda’s share stood at 67.7 percent, Ethiopia (67.9 percent), Tanzania (73.0 percent) and Uganda (73.6 percent).

‘Eating a healthy diet throughout the life cycle is critical for health, growth and development, helping to prevent all forms of malnutrition and reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases, and above all, contributing to overall well-being,’ says FAO in the report.

FAO says the less developing countries will require policies that focus not only on increasing food production but also on making nutritious foods more affordable.

Investments in climate-smart agriculture, efficient food distribution systems, lower post-harvest losses and targeted support for vulnerable households will be critical if Kenya is to reverse the trend.

All mobile phones, tablets, and laptops sold in Kenya must now come with a minimum one-year warranty and a return policy under new consumer protection rules, putting vendors at risk of fines of at least Sh500,000 for breaches.

The new guidelines issued by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) require businesses selling low-powered electronic gadgets to provide a warranty for at least 12 months, allowing customers to return faulty products.

What is it like to be the son of someone with such big shoes to fill? It’s inspiring to see what he and my mum have achieved over the years. I’m not filling his shoes; I’m following a similar path while doing things differently because we are in a different world. But one critical thing I have learnt from them is to never give up. Two, education is critical. That said, I do get calls and emails asking for Jared in meetings; I am like, ‘Wrong person.’ I have not received any of his love letters. Nor has he received any of my love letters, as far as I’m aware [chuckles].

How are you your own man? Taking chances. Growing up, you tend to be boxed into a particular journey, especially in certain careers, and law is one of those. I’ve taken risks, most of which have failed. But by not giving up, seeking out opportunities and being brave, you chart your own path.

Which dreams have you let go? By choice or? Haha! Outside the legal profession, my biggest dream was to fly. I got my licence in 2016. I have not flown for a very long time, so that’s something I feel like I have let go of.

What does flying mean to you? One, I’m always fascinated by the ability of this huge piece of metal to glide through the skies. Two, I’m a bush person. It is my happy place. And I found out the quickest way to get to the most remote places in this country is by air. Three, it is peaceful. My day-to-day life is hectic, including weekends. Being up there by yourself, and it’s just you, the sound of the engine – it’s complete and utter peace. It clears my mind, but it’s risky. I’ve got a young family, so I need to balance that out. And it’s also very expensive.

Flying or the family? That’s a good question. Both haha! I need to align my priorities.

What is one place you’ve flown to that has really stuck with you? I flew my mum to the border of Tanzania and then into Magadi. We had breakfast there and then flew back to Nairobi and continued with her birthday party. And the second was when I was probably showing off a bit when courting my now-wife. We flew to Chyulu Hills, but it’s more about the journey and who’s part of that journey and not so much the destination.

Did that help you win your wife? I think I’m a nice person [chuckles]. Well, I don’t know because she’s refused to fly with me since then.

What kind of husband did you set out to be? Did I have a plan? Not really. I think I’ve simply tried to follow in the footsteps of my parents and the kind of family they created for us. My wife is Ethiopian, and when we met, she had been in Kenya for about three years. She didn’t have any other family members here, so one of my biggest priorities was making sure she felt at home and that we built the kind of warm, wholesome family that my siblings and I were fortunate to grow up in. For me, being a good husband means listening to your partner, allowing her perspective to guide me, and supporting her wherever she needs me. That’s the kind of marriage I’ve always wanted us to have.

How did you make your marriage unique from your parents’? I don’t know if I’ve done anything different. I think they did more when they were my age than I’ve been able to do now in terms of building the family, building their businesses, and supporting the wider family and community in Kisii.

Is that a challenge or a burden to outdo your parents? It’s an inspiration, without a doubt. And really, the question is, what does success look like to me? You fall short if you pitch your success against someone else. Your success should ultimately be your success. What makes you happy.

What did success look like for you when you were younger? I’m still young haha! This is cliché, but financial independence. The second is building something I hope will outlive my partners and me and create an institution for the benefit of whoever is in it and for our clients. From a family perspective, it is being able to put the children through good schools and watching them succeed.

You went to boarding school at six years old. That’s your whole life… How was that like? I’m the youngest of four children, so I was quite young when I first went to boarding school. At the time, I had no idea what was going on. It just felt exciting to be away from home. As I got older, though, it became more challenging. This was before the internet and mobile phones. The only way to keep in touch was by writing letters, so homesickness could be quite real. Even so, I’m a big advocate of boarding school, depending on the nature of the child.

Would you parent your children the same way? Yeah, but you’re asking the wrong person. I definitely would.

How did fatherhood reconstitute success, if at all? It has put a different perspective and more drive to pursue success. It has given me a lot more purpose in terms of what I’m doing, to get out of bed on those grey Monday mornings when you’re tired, you’re stressed, you’re broke.

What frightened you most about being a father? The unknown. You can read books, or other parents will speak to you and give you all the information you need, but once that baby comes, it’s like, I don’t know what to do with this thing. And then having to learn and adapt very quickly on how to look after the child. It’s terrifying.

This is a dicey question, but which of your father’s flaws are you actively not trying to pass down to your children? Let’s call it a character trait, which I have as well. Stubbornness. If we’ve set our minds on something, it’s going to happen. I can see it coming out in my five-year-old boy and two-year-old girl.

What used to make you happy that no longer makes you happy now? The streets haha! The nightlife. I used to love passing by the bar on Friday evenings. I used to be a very sociable person. Now, I just prefer more intimate gatherings.

When did this shift happen for you? I need to be careful about this. I might give you a timeline. If my wife reads this, she’ll be like, that’s a lie [chuckles]. But around the time we got married, 2018. The reason is that you have to be purposeful about what you’re doing. Your life changes once you get married. You need to give each other attention. You’re building something and still getting to know each other. Why have you married someone if you prefer to spend Friday nights out and Saturday mornings in bed, hungover?

How do you take care of yourself? I’ll show you [shows paper]. Eight hours of hard work, eight hours of good sleep, and eight hours spent on family, friends, health, and soul. I still struggle with sleep, but I enjoy spending time doing things that take me away from work. I love cooking. Most weekends I will cook. Gym, three days a week. And being in the bush.

What’s your signature meal? Triple-fried lamb shoulder. This weekend, I’m trying to perfect my pizza-making. It’s a good way to spend time with my children, especially my son. It is not so much about the food, but the process. I have to say I have no interest in sweets and cakes. I’m scared of the dentist. I have 12 fillings and four fake teeth.

Do you have an insecurity you are willing to share? I’m a very anxious person. I worry a lot about things I really shouldn’t be worrying about. I’m doing myself a disservice, I know.

What do you wish people understood about you more? That there is a distinction between what the team and I are doing here in this firm versus what my father has done. There’s always an assumption that he’s the force behind what we’re doing here, which is frustrating. He has nothing to do with it. But it’d be silly not to get guidance from him and other experienced people.

Does that make you want to keep on proving yourself to people? Yeah.

You didn’t grow up in lack, so where does your ambition come from? This is a delicate one. With one of my first firm jobs, I got some internal information that they were deciding who to let go of. And the information I got out of there was… ‘They don’t need to retain me. I’ll be fine anyway.’ Which really frustrated me, because you’ve made an assumption and taken away all the effort and hard work I put in. So I resigned. I left with one ambition. To grow something bigger and better.

Which part of success did not taste as good as you thought it would? Let’s call it growth. Putting my hand up and saying, ‘Oh, I’m successful,’ is quite arrogant. What it has not fixed is peace. It comes with more and more challenges.

When you think of the weekend, what comes to mind? Children first. We like going to the national park. We like seeing my siblings; they’ve got children as well. Anything but work.

What habit are you trying to break? Work. I can’t live without work emails on my phone. I’d be anxious. But it taught me something. We’re a service industry. You need to be responsive to clients because without people having problems, we have no work. But how to measure your response? Is it really that critical? Can I just say, I’ve understood. I’ll get back to you on Monday. I think it definitely annoys my wife.

How do you ensure you’re stopping to smell your roses? I have to be forced into it, to be honest. It’s difficult for me to just stop. Or that tomorrow I’m not doing anything. I’ll need to be pushed into that. But also appreciate the people around you. Whether it’s family, whether it’s colleagues. Spend time with them. Listen to them.

What is your most used emoji? Probably a thumbs up. Memes, I don’t use. It’s complicated. Those GIFs. You go through it, and you’re like, oh, let me find something that’s funny. I’m not a funny person. This is a thing. And I can’t even be bothered to change the colour [chuckles]. My emojis are all yellow. It’s quick.

Give us some pro bono lawyerly advice. Think outside the box. It’s absolutely okay to be selfish. In terms of making the decisions that are right for you, and ultimately the people around you. Take bold steps and be prepared for failure. But also, there’s too much noise and external influence. Too many people are in a rush to achieve certain things, which seldom works, so cut the noise and focus on what’s important-don’t expect that even your closest friend has your best interests at heart. Those are the people who can wipe you out. And it’s not always the case that the cheap one is going to give you the same quality of advice that you actually need. And when you look at your policy, always look at exclusions. What you’re sold and what you get at the end of the day can be two very different things.

Friends are usually surprised by my distaste for political banter. True, I have been an MP and a governor, but I prefer ideas that can transform society, to political gossip.

This frustrates a group of young leaders with whom I interact. My insistence that good politics must have standards, and that the end does not always justify the means, seems lofty to them. My conviction that politics must go beyond name-calling, solve problems and improve living standards seems unattainable.

They quote Machiavelli, who argued that a politician cannot be judged with the same morality as a commoner. I’m a leader not a politician, I protest, as they point to a growing trend.

Using outlandish and controversial topics, Kenyan politicians push the public and media to debate the shock factor, rather than focusing on key issues such as unemployment and the cost of living.

This tactic is called the dead cat strategy.

Popularised by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby, the dead cat strategy is a political communications manoeuvre that introduces a sensational, controversial topic to divert public attention away from a more critical or damaging issue.

If you are losing an argument, or the facts are against you, throw a dead cat onto the dining table mate, Crosby famously advised Johnson. Everyone will immediately recoil, and start talking about the cat, instantly making them forget about the previous, uncomfortable conversation.

The point is distraction. The injected topic must be outrageous or highly emotional, to guarantee immediate media coverage and public outrage. The goal is to flood the news cycle with the new, controllable controversy so that the original issue-such as a policy failure or ethical lapse-slips by, unnoticed.

Coming into prominent view in the early 2010s, the concept is not new. Sample this: From the 19th century practice of using smelly smoked fish to throw hunting hounds off a scent trail, the ‘red herring’ became the definitive literary and political term for introducing an irrelevant topic, to divert attention from the real issue. The trick and word, are now in common usage.

‘Wag the Dog’, made popular by a 1997 movie of the same title, is a political term for creating a diversion such as an international military crisis, or foreign policy spectacle, to shift domestic media attention away from a severe political scandal at home. This is common in US and European politics.

Politicians know that public attention span is limited, and thus have, since Roman emperors, provided everything from free food to entertainment, to distract the populace from vexing political issues. They manufacture consent, Noam Chomsky argued in 1989, by staging unmissable spectacles that quietly push unfavorable policies off-stage.

Kenya’s politics is similar. It is structured around ethnic mobilisation rather than ideological or policy differences. Instead of competing on economic, healthcare, or education platforms, politicians build tribal coalitions to win elections. Ethnicity is a dead cat.

In a game of chameleon politics, parties change names and alliances every election cycle, based on tribal math, not shared ideology or policy goals. As voters, we prioritise representation over pressing issues, supporting co-ethnics out of fear of exclusion from government programs. This ‘our turn to eat’ thinking is common political speak.

There are, however, signs of a transition to issue-based politics. Kenya’s urbanised, tech-savvy youth are moving away from traditional ethnic patterns, using social media to organise around governance issues.

The 2024 youth-led revolt, and shifting economic pressures, demonstrate a growing public demand for accountability over tribal loyalty. Voters are beginning to unite around economic issues rather than tribal identity.

As late president Mwai Kibaki says in a viral clip, economic hardships like stagnant real incomes, unemployment, and high cost of living, have no tribal dimension.

Further, county-level debates are forcing gubernatorial and county legislative politicians to address specific local issues including jobs, healthcare, agriculture, and water access. Citizens are making comparisons.

While ‘dog bites man’ is a poor headline, the media should aide the transition by shifting coverage from sensational political elite melodramas, to rigorous, data-driven debates analysing the feasibility of candidate promises.

And buyer beware. As the 2027 elections beckon, dead cats are everywhere. Goonism and calls for a tourism and investment boycott are but two examples!