Category: Business Daily

All roads led to teaching, even the ones Prof Jack Mwimali took to escape it. The secretary and CEO of the Council of Legal Education is the finest product of teachers, the best student of his mother and father. Family genes are hard to shake off, he has learned.

He was a naughty boy growing up, breaking his hand two or three times in rugby, football and WrestleMania. He had hoped the gene had missed his children, skipped a generation, but woe unto him. ‘In fact,’ he says, ‘in many cases, when I am mad and want to discipline my children, I see my younger self in them.’ He is a funny guy, that Mwimali.

But he is also a bodybuilder, something he has been doing since 1998. A strongman, you would be forgiven for thinking he comes at the world with the ‘full force of the law’. Forgiven, but wrong. Because underneath that giant patina is a reticent recluse, a man who prefers to do his own laundry. Not a revolutionary act, but given the circumstances, perhaps a revelatory one: everything has to be the best in class.

It is often said that professors and academics are quite uptight. Are you uptight, Prof?

Haha! Perhaps. I may not be the best judge of my own character. But I believe I’m amiable and a good listener. That’s probably what drew me to academia. To teach and impart knowledge, you also need feedback from the people you’re interacting with; otherwise, you’re just speaking to yourself.

Tell me something cool about yourself.

I’m a bodybuilder. I’ve been bodybuilding since 1998.

Let’s talk about your house of pain. What led you to bodybuilding?

Two reasons. First, I was asthmatic and struggled with colds and certain allergens, so I went to the gym to develop my chest and improve my breathing. I also used to be a very rough boy when I was young. I broke my arm about four times, and it got very weak. I went to the gym to try to strengthen that right arm.

What’s something most people don’t know about bodybuilding?

It requires a lot of discipline. At first, there’s a lot of pain as your muscles adapt. But after a while, you feel you can’t do without it. In fact, if you don’t exercise, you feel lethargic and off the whole day. It’s almost addictive.

Do you have a memorable bodybuilding experience from your younger years?

Not particularly. But I remember when I was in Sweden, I went to the gym at the University of Lund. Some renowned Nordic strongmen trained there. I would look at them and the level of intensity with which they were training, which was quite interesting. I resolved to try doing a bit of what they were doing. As much as I could not lift as heavily as they did, I was quite competitive. I surprised myself.

What’s the hardest part about being a bodybuilder?

When you wake up, and there’s that lethargic feeling. Yet you know that if you do not exercise for the next four or five days, by the time you go back, you’ll get those aches. You have to push yourself. But in most cases, once you have started, you pick up. Even though you may have felt that you didn’t want to go, the moment you’re there, it all flows.

How has your exercise regimen changed you?

It has helped my concentration. Leadership and research require a lot of intensity, and working out relieves pressure and improves sleep. It gives you a good night’s sleep so that by the time you wake up, you feel refreshed.

Secondly, just as long and drawn-out research requires discipline, so does bodybuilding. You have to be disciplined in how you approach your training schedule.

Speaking of, Prof, what’s your guilty pleasure?

I have a sweet tooth [chuckles]. I eat a lot of sweets. In fact, if you get to a place where there are sweets, people will be surprised because I take a lot of them. I literally chew on them.

There was a time I used to go to the supermarket and buy a packet, and within a few days, they’d be finished, so I deliberately stopped buying them. But at meetings, if there are sweets, I’m usually the one taking them [chuckles].

What do sweets do for you? Did you have them a lot in childhood or not at all?

I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have many sweets growing up. I was raised in a very remote rural area in Trans Nzoia, near Saiwa Swamp, where we walked barefoot for about five kilometres. But we never felt any different from other students. We never felt that we were being treated badly; it was life, and we lived it fully, eating maize stems as sugarcane.

But many childhood games had disciplinary consequences. If you made a wire car, people assumed you had cut a fence to get the wire, and you’d get beaten. I guess that is what we derive pleasure from – that prohibited fruit made it even sweeter.

What do you miss about your younger self?

Haha! I was very strong-headed. In fact, I often see my younger self in Gen Zs. I was very argumentative, and I held very strong positions. Grown-up me is more pragmatic. I have to listen to and take the views of others.

Is that why you gravitated to bodybuilding?

Maybe. I would have played rugby. I once broke my arm when I was playing as a football goalkeeper. When I caught the ball, it went with my arm. There was a time I was jumping a hurdle and landed on my arm and broke it. The third time was while wrestling. I was a naughty boy.

Have any of those traits been passed on to your children?

Oh, a lot of them. In fact, sometimes when I want to discipline them, I remember my younger self. Once, I was marking exam papers and warned my son not to touch them. Of course, the warning excited him, and he doodled on one of the papers. I was furious, but when I looked at his face, I saw myself. I just told him not to do it again [chuckles].

My daughter once abandoned her bicycle and insisted on riding her brother’s, which was bigger. I warned her several times. She hit a tree and got injured. After the hospital visit, she still went back on the bicycle. That was me back in the day [chuckles].

What’s an aspect of fatherhood that surprised you the most?

How humane it makes you. As a single person, you tend to think in terms of personal benefit. As a parent, you sacrifice and put your children first; you can give them everything that you have. As a hard-headed person, I never thought I could make sacrifices, especially for those tiny little people.

What shortcomings from your father are you correcting with your own children?

It’s not a shortcoming, but my dad was a teacher from 1956 to 1981, when he became an administrative chief. He was a disciplinarian par excellence, very firm and sometimes harsh. We thought he was unreasonable, but later realised he knew what he was doing, even though he sometimes went too far.

I have my own ways of dealing with my young ones, but not to the extremities of my dad or my mum, who was also a teacher from 1963 to 1998.

But the teaching gene refused to skip you?

In fact, at one time, I thought I would not want to be a teacher. I did everything not to be a teacher. By the time I turned 40, I looked back at

Kenya plans to tap up to 90 percent of annual collections from the Railway Development Levy (RDL) to secure additional financing for railway projects, under proposed legal changes before Parliament.

The Miscellaneous Fees and Levies (Amendment) Bill, 2025 seeks to amend the Miscellaneous Fees and Levies Act to expand how proceeds from the Railway Development Levy Fund (RDLF) can be used. The levy is charged at two percent of the customs value of all imported goods.

‘The purpose of the levy shall be to provide funds for the construction and operation of a standard gauge railway network in order to facilitate the transportation of goods,’ the memorandum to the Bill states.

If approved, the amendments would allow the State to leverage future levy revenues to mobilise fresh capital for railway infrastructure. This marks a shift from the current pay-as-you-go model.

A clause in the Bill provides that a proportion of the RDLF ‘not exceeding ninety percent of the Fund may be used to secure additional funds’ for developing railway infrastructure, including the standard gauge railway (SGR).

The structure mirrors the securitisation of the Road Maintenance Fuel Levy, where the government committed part of future fuel levy collections to repay investors in road bonds.

The Treasury securitised Sh7 of the Sh25 collected per litre of petrol and diesel after increasing the levy from Sh18 to Sh25 in July 2024.

Read: Martin Agumbi: Why Kenya Roads Board is tapping future fuel levies now

While that approach has been framed as a way to clear sector arrears, the National Treasury has differed with the International Monetary Fund over whether such financing should be classified as sovereign debt.

‘The concern is an accounting matter on whether we should capture it as a sovereign debt or not. Our position as government is that once you sell a right to a special purpose vehicle (SPV), then there is no risk to the government at all,’ Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said earlier.

The proposed amendments would effectively turn the RDLF into a financial anchor, enabling the government to use future levy proceeds to back loans, bonds or other structured instruments to accelerate railway expansion and upgrades.

Chinese lenders negotiations

Kenya has increasingly turned to alternative financing models to fund infrastructure amid rising debt-servicing costs and constrained fiscal space. Rail projects, seen as critical to lowering freight costs and improving regional trade competitiveness, have faced funding gaps.

The Bill also broadens the use of the levy to include financing the safety and economic regulation of railway infrastructure, as well as rehabilitation works, subject to approval by the Cabinet Secretary.

The changes come as Kenya negotiates with Chinese lenders to make the levy more flexible. China Exim Bank financed the SGR from Mombasa to Suswa near Naivasha.

Mr Mbadi said Kenya has opened talks with China Exim Bank to drop a clause requiring RDL proceeds to be used to repay the loan for the Mombasa-Naivasha line.

He said a waiver would allow the levy, which forms part of the security for existing loans, to back a bond to finance the extension of the SGR from Naivasha to Malaba.

‘What we intend to do is use the railway development levy to raise funds and have an engagement with Exim Bank on this because there is a provision in the agreement that ties the railway development levy to this loan,’ he said on February 11.

He added: ‘We have not engaged with China to fund the railway from Naivasha.’

Ring-fencing RDLF

The Bill, sponsored by Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, proposes the creation of a ring-fenced Railway Development Levy Fund into which all levy proceeds would be paid.

The Fund would be managed by a Railway Development Levy Fund Board structured as a corporate body. It would comprise a chairperson appointed by the President, the Principal Secretaries responsible for railway transport and the Treasury, a representative from the Office of the Attorney-General, five non-public members with expertise in infrastructure finance, law, investment or public-private partnerships, and a secretary serving ex officio.

The governance framework is intended to strengthen oversight of levy revenues, which have historically flowed through broader government systems.

Under the Bill, the Cabinet Secretary would have powers to make regulations on staffing, administration and use of the Fund, subject to the Public Finance Management Act. Transactions would be subject to audit under the Public Audit Act.

Administrative costs would be capped at 0.5 percent of the Fund, a provision aimed at limiting overheads and directing most resources to infrastructure development.

Africa’s economic future is no longer framed solely by development aid or political summits; it is increasingly defined by balance sheets, construction timelines, and export statistics.

Across the continent, governments are recalibrating their growth strategies toward industrialization, regional trade, and value addition.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents more than a policy milestone; it signals a recognition that Africa’s 1.4 billion people can constitute a formidable internal market.

Yet integration on paper requires integration in practice.

Railways must move goods efficiently from inland production hubs to coastal ports. Power plants must keep factories running without interruption.

Digital infrastructure must connect entrepreneurs to global supply chains. From the expanding port facilities in Mombasa to industrial zones outside Addis Ababa, the continent’s ambitions are becoming visible in steel, concrete, and fiber-optic cables.

In this transformation, geopolitics and business have become inseparable. Major global economies are reconfiguring supply chains, seeking secure access to strategic minerals such as cobalt, copper, and lithium, resources that Africa holds in abundance.

The green energy transition has amplified this interest, turning parts of Southern and Central Africa into pivotal nodes in global manufacturing networks.

For African policymakers, however, the central question is how global competition can be leveraged for domestic gain.

The Asian giant has become a prominent and constructive commercial presence within this evolving landscape, pairing infrastructure financing with trade expansion and industrial cooperation.

Its approach has emphasized speed of delivery, large-scale implementation, and long-term strategic engagement, attributes that resonate strongly in environments where infrastructure deficits have historically constrained growth.

African business leaders increasingly focus on tangible results. When a railway reduces freight costs, manufacturers can price their goods more competitively. When a power project stabilises electricity supply, small enterprises can scale into medium-sized firms.

When port modernisation shortens cargo clearance times, exporters can meet international deadlines more reliably. The Asian giant’s growing engagement has included not only construction projects but also expanded market access for African products, enabling agricultural exporters and light manufacturers to tap into a vast consumer base.

For many African economies seeking diversification beyond raw commodity exports, such access represents a meaningful pathway toward value addition and industrial upgrading.

At the same time, Africa’s agency continues to strengthen. Governments are negotiating agreements that incorporate skills transfer, joint ventures, and domestic employment opportunities, ensuring that partnerships generate long-term developmental benefits.

In Kenya, infrastructure investments are increasingly designed to maximise economic spillovers ensuring that transport corridors stimulate industrial clusters and regional trade.

In Zambia and Tanzania, discussions about mineral wealth are advancing toward beneficiation and local processing, reinforcing the continent’s determination to capture greater value from its resources. Partnerships anchored in mutual respect and shared economic objectives are central to this progress.

The broader geopolitical environment reinforces Africa’s strategic importance. As global supply chains diversify and the energy transition accelerates, Africa’s youthful workforce and resource base position it as a vital contributor to global growth.

In this context, pragmatic engagement with reliable partners becomes essential. The Asian giant’s sustained involvement in infrastructure, manufacturing, and trade cooperation demonstrates a long-term perspective aligned with Africa’s industrial ambitions.

Rather than episodic engagement, the relationship increasingly reflects continuity and structured economic planning.

Demographics add urgency to these choices. Each year, millions of young Africans enter the labor force. Industrial parks, agro-processing facilities, and technology hubs must expand rapidly to absorb this workforce.

Infrastructure must anchor productive ecosystems that create stable employment and enhance competitiveness.

The Asian giant’s experience in rapid industrial scaling offers valuable lessons in sequencing development integrating transport, energy, and manufacturing capacity in coordinated corridors. When adapted thoughtfully to local conditions, such models can accelerate Africa’s transition from commodity dependence to diversified production.

Ultimately, Africa’s business moment is unfolding at the intersection of opportunity and transformation.

Global demand for minerals, consumer markets, and manufacturing diversification presents the continent with unprecedented leverage. Success will depend on disciplined governance, transparent negotiations, and a steadfast focus on productivity and innovation.

The future will be determined by measurable outcomes, kilometers of railway laid, megawatts generated, goods exported, and skills transferred.

Africa’s steady emphasis on industrialisation and value addition signals a continent intent on shaping its own commercial destiny. With committed partners such as the Asian giant contributing capital, expertise, and market access, Africa is not merely participating in global economic change; it is actively defining its role within it.

One common pitfall in implementing sustainability is organisations selecting performance measures that are misaligned with their business growth strategy.

Taking this approach leads to severe consequences, such as keeping sustainability on a separate parallel track from the actual business, and encouraging dual reporting, in which sustainability information is prepared solely for compliance and fails to address business information needs required to monitor progress against targets for business growth.

Organisations have numerous stakeholders with different expectations and information needs.

Therefore, it is imperative to distinguish between material sustainability issues and other matters that are related to compliance and information requests. Failure by organisations to make this distinction usually indicates a shallow understanding of sustainability and its role in the broader business context.

The reason for focusing on material issues is to identify the subset of non-financial matters that could impact the organisation’s short, medium, and long-term success. These material issues need to be considered as the organisation executes its strategy. The other sets of information that are not material but required for compliance or to meet stakeholder expectations need to be provided separately.

This is why, unlike other sustainability reporting standards, the IFRS sustainability disclosure standards are investor-focused and aim to provide investors with the relevant, decision-useful information about the organisation’s financial prospects.

Therefore, the handful of KPIs (key performance indicators) used to track these material investor-focused topics or issues will equally be of interest to the board and management of organisations. Organisations should ensure that their sustainability materiality process involves all critical stakeholders, including the strategy team.

The involvement of these stakeholders in the materiality process will further enrich the outcome, ensuring alignment and distinguishing between KPIs and other performance objectives that are not key but essential to meet other stakeholders’ information demands.

The benefits that accrue to organisations that are deliberate in this process range from a focused approach to value creation to the efficient use of resources and clarity on the sustainability reporting approach.

Organisations can choose to incorporate this investor-focused, strategy-aligned set of sustainability information, which also complies with the IFRS sustainability disclosure standards, into their general financial report, while using a separate sustainability report to meet other stakeholder information needs.

Akinyemi Awodumila is a Partner at PwC Kenya. He is an author who writes and speaks widely on corporate reporting topics

Across Africa, digital identity has become part of everyday life. Governments use it to deliver services, banks rely on it to open accounts and digital platforms depend on it to verify users.

According to the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) programme, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the only global region where ID ownership is not near-universal, with eight economies still below 70 percent coverage and persistent gender gaps in access.

This highlights that progress in expanding ID ownership is evident and important, yet having an ID is not the same as being able to use it, many people with IDs still face obstacles in leveraging them to access services, transact, or participate fully in the digital economy.

It is clear that identity systems have evolved. Older forms of identification were issued under earlier standards, using different data formats, enrolment methods, or verification rules. As governments and institutions modernise digital infrastructure, these older IDs are not always fully compatible with newer systems.

In practice, this can mean that a person who has been officially identified for decades may still fail digital verification. For example, during a recent verification process, a gentleman in his 50s, who had held a valid national ID for years, was unable to be authenticated because his legacy identity record did not align with the requirements of a newer digital system.

The issue was not fraud or lack of documentation, but a mismatch between old identity records and new infrastructure.

In such cases, exclusion is not caused by the absence of identity, but by how identity systems are upgraded, connected and maintained over time. Digital identity only works when systems are designed to accommodate transition, recognising that people, records and technologies do not all evolve at the same pace.

As identity systems are connected to payments, mobile services, healthcare and government platforms, they stop being stand-alone projects. They become shared infrastructure that needs to work for everyone.

When identity systems work well, services are easier to access and trust increases. When they do not, people are excluded, fraud increases and confidence in digital systems drops. These outcomes depend less on technology labels and more on the choices made when systems are built.

Also, in most identity systems, governments face what appears to be a difficult trade-off. Centralised databases enable fraud detection and de-duplication-but raise legitimate concerns about surveillance and data misuse.

Decentralised approaches protect privacy-but make it harder to prevent duplicate enrollments or detect fraud.

This is often presented as an either-or choice. But it does not have to be. Hybrid architectures offered by companies such as Identy.io can deliver both: on-device verification for daily authentication that keeps biometric templates on the citizen’s phone, with centralised checks activated only when de-duplication is truly needed-and only with explicit consent.

Decisions that seem technical often have real consequences. Some biometric systems do not work well for manual labourers, older people, or people with disabilities. Centralised systems can raise concerns about privacy and misuse of personal data.

Hardware-heavy systems can take years to roll out, delaying access to services for those who need them most. This is where system design becomes critical:

Africa has already shown how digital infrastructure can transform lives. Mobile technology changed how people save, pay, and communicate. Digital identity is now becoming the next foundation.

As identity becomes central to daily interactions, the stakes increase. Systems must be reliable, secure and fair. They must protect people while allowing governments and institutions to deliver services efficiently. Digital identity is no longer a back-office system. It is essential infrastructure.

Software-base capture-using smartphone cameras instead of specialized scanners can reduce deployment timelines from years to months.

These issues are not theoretical. They affect whether a farmer can receive support, whether a small business can access credit, or whether a citizen can safely prove their identity online.

At Identy.io, we see digital identity as public infrastructure that should serve people first. That means designing systems that recognize human diversity, protect individuals, and work in real-world conditions, not just in ideal settings.

What is Good Digital Identity?

From a policy perspective, three principles matter most: inclusion, trust, and adaptability. Inclusion means systems should not exclude people by default. No single method works for everyone, and identity systems need to reflect that reality.

Trust means protecting people from fraud, impersonation, and misuse.

As deepfakes and AI-generated content become more common, verifying that a real person is present becomes essential, not just to protect institutions but to protect individuals from harm.

Adaptability means governments should be able to improve and change systems over time. Digital identity should not lock countries into rigid structures that are hard to update as laws, technologies, and public expectations evolve.

Component-based architectures-where biometric authentication, identity platforms, and digital wallets can be mixed, replaced, or upgraded independently-give governments the flexibility to evolve without starting over. Avoiding vendor lock-in is not just a procurement concern; it is a matter of long-term sovereignty over critical national infrastructure.

‘Digital identity should make people’s lives easier, not harder,’ says Dr Olajide Olasiyan-Ola, Regional Head for West Africa at Identy.io. ‘If systems do not reflect real human conditions, they risk excluding the very people they are meant to support.’

Africa’s film industry is growing exponentially. Cinema screens are multiplying, streaming platforms are expanding their libraries and global audiences are hungry for diverse stories that reflect the richness of Africa.

But beneath this creative energy lies a truth: talent alone is no longer enough. To thrive in this new era, filmmakers must think not only as artists, but as founders who understand that storytelling is both craft and enterprise.

The creative sector already contributes over $4.2 billion to Africa’s gross domestic product with massive room for growth. Sub-Saharan Africa’s entertainment and media market is projected to grow at nearly 9 percent annually, one of the fastest rates in the world. This is a reminder to treat filmmaking as art and business.

Players must start thinking about revenue from their productions. Filmmakers who understand monetisation can shape their projects with intention, deciding whether a story belongs on streaming platforms, the festival circuit, short-form digital, television, or cinema. These choices ripple outward, influencing budgets, casting, marketing, and ultimately, impact.

Monetisation is expanding faster than ever. African filmmakers can now earn from digital streaming, licensing, brand partnerships, international co-productions, film grants, YouTube revenue and mobile-first platforms.

But to unlock these opportunities, they must track budgets, planning revenue, and positioning their work strategically. According to Unesco, less than 10 percent of African films secure international distribution due to weak business structures.

Another cornerstone of creative entrepreneurship is intellectual property, especially in a continent where piracy and informal distribution is a menace. IP is valuable to filmmakers because it determines long-term revenue through syndication, international sales, and adaptation rights. Yet too many filmmakers sign away their rights too early, trading long-term growth for short-term payoffs.

Pitching, too, becomes critical when filmmakers embrace entrepreneurship. A strong pitch is not just about telling a story; it is about proving feasibility. Investors want clarity on audience, budget, distribution, and market potential.

Funding models are also evolving beyond traditional grants and broadcaster commissions, filmmakers now have access to co-production treaties, crowdfunding, impact investment, accelerators, and even private equity funds exploring creative ventures.

To unlock these opportunities filmmakers must maintain transparent accounting, financial roadmaps, and clear strategies that show how funds will translate into production output and returns. Training institutions are rising to meet this moment.

They are no longer teaching only technical skills; they are embedding entrepreneurship into their curricula. Students learn how to build production companies, negotiate contracts, design sustainable business models, and pitch to investors.

All roads led to teaching, even the ones Prof Jack Mwimali took to escape it. The secretary and CEO of the Council of Legal Education is the finest product of teachers, the best student of his mother and father. Family genes are hard to shake off, he has learned.

He was a naughty boy growing up, breaking his hand two or three times in rugby, football and WrestleMania. He had hoped the gene had missed his children, skipped a generation, but woe unto him. ‘In fact,’ he says, ‘in many cases, when I am mad and want to discipline my children, I see my younger self in them.’ He is a funny guy, that Mwimali.

But he is also a bodybuilder, something he has been doing since 1998. A strongman, you would be forgiven for thinking he comes at the world with the ‘full force of the law’. Forgiven, but wrong. Because underneath that giant patina is a reticent recluse, a man who prefers to do his own laundry. Not a revolutionary act, but given the circumstances, perhaps a revelatory one: everything has to be the best in class.

It is often said that professors and academics are quite uptight. Are you uptight, Prof?

Haha! Perhaps. I may not be the best judge of my own character. But I believe I’m amiable and a good listener. That’s probably what drew me to academia. To teach and impart knowledge, you also need feedback from the people you’re interacting with; otherwise, you’re just speaking to yourself.

Tell me something cool about yourself.

I’m a bodybuilder. I’ve been bodybuilding since 1998.

Let’s talk about your house of pain. What led you to bodybuilding?

Two reasons. First, I was asthmatic and struggled with colds and certain allergens, so I went to the gym to develop my chest and improve my breathing. I also used to be a very rough boy when I was young. I broke my arm about four times, and it got very weak. I went to the gym to try to strengthen that right arm.

What’s something most people don’t know about bodybuilding?

It requires a lot of discipline. At first, there’s a lot of pain as your muscles adapt. But after a while, you feel you can’t do without it. In fact, if you don’t exercise, you feel lethargic and off the whole day. It’s almost addictive.

Do you have a memorable bodybuilding experience from your younger years?

Not particularly. But I remember when I was in Sweden, I went to the gym at the University of Lund. Some renowned Nordic strongmen trained there. I would look at them and the level of intensity with which they were training, which was quite interesting. I resolved to try doing a bit of what they were doing. As much as I could not lift as heavily as they did, I was quite competitive. I surprised myself.

What’s the hardest part about being a bodybuilder?

When you wake up, and there’s that lethargic feeling. Yet you know that if you do not exercise for the next four or five days, by the time you go back, you’ll get those aches. You have to push yourself. But in most cases, once you have started, you pick up. Even though you may have felt that you didn’t want to go, the moment you’re there, it all flows.

How has your exercise regimen changed you?

It has helped my concentration. Leadership and research require a lot of intensity, and working out relieves pressure and improves sleep. It gives you a good night’s sleep so that by the time you wake up, you feel refreshed.

Secondly, just as long and drawn-out research requires discipline, so does bodybuilding. You have to be disciplined in how you approach your training schedule.

Speaking of, Prof, what’s your guilty pleasure?

I have a sweet tooth [chuckles]. I eat a lot of sweets. In fact, if you get to a place where there are sweets, people will be surprised because I take a lot of them. I literally chew on them.

There was a time I used to go to the supermarket and buy a packet, and within a few days, they’d be finished, so I deliberately stopped buying them. But at meetings, if there are sweets, I’m usually the one taking them [chuckles].

What do sweets do for you? Did you have them a lot in childhood or not at all?

I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have many sweets growing up. I was raised in a very remote rural area in Trans Nzoia, near Saiwa Swamp, where we walked barefoot for about five kilometres. But we never felt any different from other students. We never felt that we were being treated badly; it was life, and we lived it fully, eating maize stems as sugarcane.

But many childhood games had disciplinary consequences. If you made a wire car, people assumed you had cut a fence to get the wire, and you’d get beaten. I guess that is what we derive pleasure from – that prohibited fruit made it even sweeter.

What do you miss about your younger self?

Haha! I was very strong-headed. In fact, I often see my younger self in Gen Zs. I was very argumentative, and I held very strong positions. Grown-up me is more pragmatic. I have to listen to and take the views of others.

Is that why you gravitated to bodybuilding?

Maybe. I would have played rugby. I once broke my arm when I was playing as a football goalkeeper. When I caught the ball, it went with my arm. There was a time I was jumping a hurdle and landed on my arm and broke it. The third time was while wrestling. I was a naughty boy.

Have any of those traits been passed on to your children?

Oh, a lot of them. In fact, sometimes when I want to discipline them, I remember my younger self. Once, I was marking exam papers and warned my son not to touch them. Of course, the warning excited him, and he doodled on one of the papers. I was furious, but when I looked at his face, I saw myself. I just told him not to do it again [chuckles].

My daughter once abandoned her bicycle and insisted on riding her brother’s, which was bigger. I warned her several times. She hit a tree and got injured. After the hospital visit, she still went back on the bicycle. That was me back in the day [chuckles].

What’s an aspect of fatherhood that surprised you the most?

How humane it makes you. As a single person, you tend to think in terms of personal benefit. As a parent, you sacrifice and put your children first; you can give them everything that you have. As a hard-headed person, I never thought I could make sacrifices, especially for those tiny little people.

What shortcomings from your father are you correcting with your own children?

It’s not a shortcoming, but my dad was a teacher from 1956 to 1981, when he became an administrative chief. He was a disciplinarian par excellence, very firm and sometimes harsh. We thought he was unreasonable, but later realised he knew what he was doing, even though he sometimes went too far.

I have my own ways of dealing with my young ones, but not to the extremities of my dad or my mum, who was also a teacher from 1963 to 1998.

But the teaching gene refused to skip you?

In fact, at one time, I thought I would not want to be a teacher. I did everything not to be a teacher. By the time I turned 40, I looked back at what I had achieved in life. I had surpassed them in academia.

But my dad had 14 of us, and by the time he was 40, most of us were schooled. I was surprised at how he had achieved that with a shoestring budget. Yet I, who earn much more than he did, was not able to do half of what he did.

How has that shaped your relationship with money?

I’m very poor at spending on myself. I’m frugal because I saw how my parents struggled and sacrificed. I can go to a big club and just have a good time by myself. But that childhood feeling that it is a waste of money persists.

What’s your worst money habit?

I behave like a woman when it comes to shoes and bags. I have many shoes and bags. But my shoes are not high-end. Having grown up in a humble background, I buy mitumba shoes, and I find them much more comfortable and fitting than the ones I buy at a shop. In many cases, while at the garage to repair my car, a miller or vendor will come, and I’ll buy shoes from them.

What lie has success disabused you of?

That success takes you out of the village. I still acknowledge those humble beginnings, and it helps me be more empathetic. I wasn’t always the sharpest student in class, but somehow doors would open for me.

I would get scholarships and chances to do certain things that those who were much better than I could not access. That has taught me humility. I trust that these opportunities are provided to us by God, and we should be responsible, not just rake in the benefits.

What is a contrarian view, belief or habit that you hold that most people may not agree with?

If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have had an answer. Now, I’m very centrist. I believe in pragmatism and listening to opposing views. In fact, I feel let down if you have a contrary view and you don’t raise it for whatever reason.

What do you still need to unlearn to become a better version of yourself?

One of the worst things about me is that I’m very persistent. If I take a course, I tend to pursue it to the bitter end. You make a decision, you stick with it, knocking on the same wall even if it’s not coming down. I have to unlearn that.

What are you looking forward to doing most this weekend?

I love my own company. I have a building in a very remote area out of town. That’s where my house is. I love escaping the hustle and bustle of town and being in that home, doing stuff around the house, cleaning.

By the way, I still wash my clothes, and every time someone washes for me, I feel it is not as clean as I would have wanted. So I do the washing myself.

By hand?

I have a machine, but I still wash by hand somehow. Because I feel the machine doesn’t wash properly. It still leaves stains on the collar and all that. I guess it’s just a way of having personal time with myself. Because as I wash, I think. I’m not very good at singing, but since to an extent I am introverted, I can sing for myself without any care in the world when I am washing up [chuckles].

Eveready East Africa has pivoted to clean energy and consumer financing from battery distribution as it seeks to turn around years of losses that have left it in a negative equity position.

The firm said in a statement that it is entering into partnerships to deliver solar power, energy storage and clean cooking solutions, while also participating in carbon market initiatives and electric vehicle (EV) financing.

Eveready said it is riding on a platform known as Integrated Clean Energy Platform to partner with Huawei Technologies and Jinko Solar to supply digital power solutions that include commercial and industrial solar inverters and grid-connected systems, residential solar panels and battery backup, and smart energy management and monitoring systems.

The company is also entering the electric mobility market through a partnership with EV Jumla, where they will jointly offer asset backed financing for commercial and private electric vehicles and motorcycles.

‘Eveready is reimagining its role in Kenya’s energy future. This transformation reflects our commitment to making clean, affordable, and reliable energy accessible, while building a resilient business positioned for long-term growth,’ said Eveready Chief Operating Officer Sonia Karuma.

Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)- listed Eveready is looking to ride on the renewable energy segment to repair its equity position which stood at a negative of Sh101 million in March 2024, a result of years of loss making.

The firm’s previous majority owner East Africa Batteries Limited (EABL) sold its 35 percent shareholding to Dubai-based InvestAfrica FZCO in 2023, with the new owners expected to help turn around the company’s losses that culminated in the closure of its dry cell manufacturing plant in Nakuru in 2014, and the auction of an 18.5-acre parcel of land that held the facility in 2016.

EABL, which was associated with the family of the late businessman Naushad Merali under his Sameer Group brand, was formed in 1987 for the sole purpose of holding shares in Eveready.

Eveready blamed the closure of its Nakuru factory that rendered 99 people jobless on increased competition from cheap and illegal products. It subsequently shifted its business model from manufacturing to distributorship of imported battery products to cut operational costs.

The downturn in fortunes also saw the company’s share price at the Nairobi bourse fall sharply after its listing in 2006 at a price of Sh9.50 per unit, which rose to highs of Sh18 shortly after the IPO.

The share is currently trading at Sh1.67 per share, although the news of the change in strategy has seen it gain 28.5 percent over the last three trading sessions at the NSE.

Electric motorcycle company Spiro has secured a $7 million (Sh903 million) debt financing to accelerate the expansion of its electric bike fleet and battery-swapping network across Kenya and other African markets.

The funding comes from climate-focused financier Nithio through its Facility for Adaptation, Inclusion and Resilience fund, a private investment vehicle that backs firms providing household energy assets such as solar home systems and productive-use appliances. The capital will also bolster Spiro’s working capital base.

Spiro Deputy Country Head for Kenya, Raymond Kitunga, said the company is targeting rapid scale-up of its battery-swapping stations, dealership network and after-sales support.

‘We have 40 dealers across Kenya, and we seek to increase to 100 by the end of the year,’ he told the Business Daily in an interview.

The firm is currently operational in 30 counties and aims to expand to all 47 counties by the close of 2026, he said. Founded in 2022, Spiro is a subsidiary of Dubai-based investment vehicle Equitane and is headquartered in Dubai, with its main operations hub in Nairobi.

The company describes itself as Africa’s largest electric mobility company, running an assembly and battery-swapping network for electric two-wheelers.

Spiro also operates in Togo, Benin, Rwanda, Uganda and Nigeria, with more than 80,000 electric motorcycles and over 2,500 battery-swapping stations across its markets.

Most of its bikes are used commercially by motorcycle taxi operators, locally referred to as boda bodas. The company estimates that running costs for an e-bike are at least 30 per cent lower than a petrol bike.

Spiro has four assembly facilities in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda. The bikes are assembled from knockdown kits imported from China, with some spare parts sourced from India. Mr Kitunga said the Kenyan plant produces up to 50,000 electric motorcycles annually.

The company says about 30 percent of each motorcycle’s value is locally sourced.

Last year, Spiro raised $100 million (Sh12.9 billion) to expand production, in what it described as the continent’s largest capital raise in the electric mobility sector. The fundraising was led by the Fund for Export Development in Africa, the development arm of Afreximbank.

Nithio, which has operations in Kenya, Nigeria and the United States, runs a blended-finance platform pooling commercial, development finance and philanthropic capital. Its backers include The Shell Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, FSD Africa and The Rise Fund.

The firm says it invests in local household energy companies that reach last-mile customers. In Kenya, Nithio has also financed the solar irrigation technology provider SunCulture, as well as asset-financing and solar energy companies d.light, M-KOPA and Sun King.

The Nairobi bourse has notched up the biggest one-week gain on record, capping off a period that left investors Sh220.24 billion richer.

Market capitalisation-the measure of investor wealth-rose by 6.9 percent to a new all-time high of Sh3.419 trillion, largely driven by large counters such as Safaricom, Equity Group, KCB Group and Stanbic Holdings.

Safaricom added Sh78 billion or 6.1 percent in valuation to Sh1.36 trillion last week, at a share price of Sh33.95.

Equity’s valuation rose 13 percent or Sh33 billion, while KCB and Stanbic added 11.9 percent or Sh25.7 billion and 16.8 percent or Sh13.7 billion respectively.

This has placed the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on course to repeat last year’s performance that saw it emerge top in investor returns relative to bonds, bank deposits and real estate.

Safaricom gains were attributed to its announcement of a higher interim dividend of Sh0.85 per share the previous week, and investors taking a position on the banks ahead of their full-year financial announcements in the next one month.

Unlike other recent share price rallies, however, small and medium sized stocks also came to the fore, with 21 recording double-digit percentage price gains in the week, which analysts said was a result of increased activity due to the easier access handed to retail investors by the new mobile money trading platform, Zidii Trader.

‘We saw the mobile platform bring in a new wave of retail players into the market, significantly increasing the number of deals, and to a lesser extent the turnover,’ said Wesley Manambo, a senior research associate at Standard Investment Bank.

‘While there were no major earnings updates to warrant the rally, we did see Safaricom’s price being driven by its interim dividend announcement, indicating the market is pricing in such payouts.’

The number of unique deals or transactions carried out in the market more than doubled to 101,284 last week, from 43,564 the previous week, highlighting the immediate impact of the direct shares trading via the M-Pesa platform.

Equity turnover was up 55 percent to Sh7.34 billion on a week-on-week basis, while the number of shares traded rose 81 percent to 225.88 million shares, from 124.84 million previously.

Ziidi Trader is a partnership between Safaricom, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and Kestrel Capital. The platform was opened to the public on Thursday last week, following a pilot done from a sample of staff from the three project partners.

Its rollout eases market entry by negating the need for investors to open individual central depository system (CDS) accounts, as investors can access the trading infrastructure via M-Pesa using the mobile platform’s PIN as the only passcode to opt in and commence equities trading.

Shares bought via the Ziidi Trader will sit on an omnibus account managed by Kestrel Capital, with the broker being expected to keep a record of all transactions, including details on individual share ownership.

On its official launch on February 9, the Ziidi Trader platform yielded 7,962 share orders at the NSE, accounting for more than half of the 14,300 transactions conducted on the day.

Increased participation by retail investors has been behind the recent rallies seen on smaller counters at the NSE over the past two years.

The market was coming off a prolonged bear run that saw foreigners dominate trading, concentrating on large cap stocks that had solid fundamentals and the necessary liquidity to support their large ticket trades.

The number of individual investors on the NSE meanwhile remained stagnant during the long bear run between 2015 and 2023, with the absence of new initial public offering listings denying the market new entrants who would have shaken up trading volumes.

Data from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) placed the number of local individual investors at 1.25 million at the end of 2025, down from nearly two million at the same time in 2022. The Nairobi bourse envisions having at least nine million active retail investors by 2029.

Meanwhile, other investment options such as unit trusts and government securities saw a sharp growth in numbers in the period. CMA data, for instance, shows that the number of unit trust investors in Kenya more than doubled to 2.96 million from 1.29 million in the 12 months to September 2025.

With the higher participation by local retail buyers now coming into equities through the mobile platform, the bourse is anticipating higher volumes and better price discovery across all segments of the market.

In the past week, the top gainers list was led by Sasini at 53.6 percent to Sh30.95 per share, Eveready East Africa at 28.5 percent to Sh1.67, Car and General at 27.7 percent to Sh73.75 and Sameer Africa at 27 percent to Sh20.25 per share.

Sasini and Eveready were partially boosted by corporate news around sales of land and change in business strategy respectively. Kenya Power, CIC Insurance, the NSE, Eaagads, DTB, Equity, Stanbic, KCB, Express Kenya and Limuru Tea also recorded double-digit percentage gains last week.

Others were Kakuzi, I and M Group, Express Kenya, Nation Media Group, TPS East Africa, Britam Holdings, Kenya Re and Unga Group.

In the year to date, the bourse has now added 16 percent or Sh475 billion, keeping it ahead of the pack among major investment classes in returns to investors. The January and February Treasury bond issuances carried annual interest returns of between 12.3 and 14 percent, while fixed deposit returns are now at seven percent.