Category: Business Daily

For years, a second passport was seen as part of the ultimate wealth package: another layer of security, easier access to international markets and a way of giving families more options abroad. But among Kenya’s wealthiest individuals, that appetite appears to be cooling.

The latest Wealth Report by luxury property consultancy Knight Frank shows that fewer wealthy Kenyans are actively looking to acquire a second citizenship, with many choosing instead to keep their primary residence, businesses and investments at home.

Knight Frank classifies Ultra High Net Worth Individuals as people with a net worth of more than $30 million (Sh4 billion), while High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) have at least $1 million (Sh128 million).

‘Domestic confidence among Kenya’s HNWIs remains notably strong in 2026, with limited appetite for second citizenships or alternative residency programmes,’ Knight Frank notes in the report.

Less than 10 percent

Fewer than 10 percent of wealthy Kenyans surveyed said they ‘plan to apply for a second passport or new citizenship’ this year. Another 38 percent said they are not currently pursuing alternative citizenship status.

The findings mark a notable shift from the second-residency buzz that gained momentum after the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings are broadly consistent with the trend observed in 2025, when similarly, fewer HNWIs expressed interest in acquiring second citizenships.

Instead, more of the country’s wealthy appear inclined to keep their capital and investments closer to home.

‘The continued preference for retaining primary residency in Kenya reflects sustained confidence in the country’s long-term economic prospects and investment environment, despite prevailing global uncertainties,’ the report adds.

However, the broader African picture is somewhat different.

In an interview with BDLife last October, Orience, a global investment migration firm operating in Africa, said alternative residency programmes had continued to attract wealthy Africans, with South Africans and Kenyans emerging as the continent’s most enthusiastic applicants in its database between 2023 and 2025.

Kenyan demand, however, remained modest compared with South Africa, although Orience said the emerging interest pointed to a potentially significant market opportunity.

‘Residency by investment programmes such as Portugal’s Golden Visa or the US’s EB-5 programme, China and India are always at the top [in terms of applications]. But among African countries, South Africa leads, followed by Kenya,’ Lisa Bathurst, Orience’s South Africa manager, told BDLife.

However, Henley and Partners, a global residence and citizenship planning firm, cautions against interpreting the findings as evidence that Kenyan appetite for second citizenship or alternative residency is necessarily waning.

Sophisticated conversations

‘We would be cautious about interpreting any apparent softening in demand for second citizenship or alternative residency in isolation as a decline in international mobility planning,’ says Dominic Volek, Dubai-based Group Head of Private Clients at Henley and Partners.

What is changing, he argues, is the sophistication of the conversation among wealthy individuals and families.

‘Increasingly, the objective is not simply to acquire a second passport or relocate permanently, but to create greater optionality across jurisdictions through a combination of residence rights, citizenships, investments, business interests, and family arrangements,’ he says.

Volek suggests the latest figures may point to a more nuanced approach to wealth diversification among Kenya’s affluent.

‘We describe this increasingly sophisticated approach as building a ‘sovereign portfolio’, creating a diversified geographical footprint that gives families greater flexibility and resilience in an increasingly uncertain world.’

Beyond the convenience

The motivations driving HNWIs toward second residencies, he says, extend well beyond the convenience of holding another passport.

‘Geopolitical uncertainty, changing tax and regulatory environments, tighter or less predictable visa regimes, access to international business and financial centres, education opportunities, quality of life, security, and succession and legacy planning can all influence the decisions wealthy families make,’ Volek says.

Many successful entrepreneurs and business families, Volek notes, remain deeply invested in their domestic economies while simultaneously establishing options elsewhere.

There is also a generational dimension to the changing conversation around second residencies.

‘Younger entrepreneurs and first-generation wealth creators tend to be highly internationally minded, and their priorities can extend well beyond visa-free travel,’ Volek says.

‘For them, global business connectivity, access to markets and capital, the ability to operate internationally, and creating education and career opportunities for their children can all form part of the decision.’

And according to him, the evolution is not unique to Kenya. Globally, the investment migration landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, with wealthy individuals pursuing different combinations of residency, citizenship, investment and business interests.

‘In the first six months of 2026 alone, Henley and Partners received applications from 86 nationalities across 47 investment migration programmes, with Americans in the USA being our biggest client cohort, illustrating the breadth and increasingly international nature of the market,’ Volek says.

He argues that one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding investment migration is that it is primarily about buying a passport, securing visa-free travel or reducing tax liabilities.

‘In reality, sophisticated wealth mobility planning is far broader. Rule of law, quality of life, family inclusion, geopolitical stability, capital mobility, business opportunities, and the long-term predictability of a jurisdiction are increasingly important considerations,’ he says.

For Andrew Amoils, Head of Research at New World Wealth, however, Kenya’s changing position in the wealth migration conversation is closely tied to its geopolitical and economic appeal.

Nairobi is currently home to just over 4,000 HNWIs and 10 centi-millionaires as of June 2026, making it the sixth-wealthiest city in Africa, according to New World Wealth.

‘As East Africa’s economic engine room, the city boasts some of the continent’s oldest luxury residential neighbourhoods, including Karen and Muthaiga. Its mild, temperate climate also gives Nairobi an unusual advantage,’ Amoils notes.

Emerging HNWI destination

He further observes that, ‘Nairobi accounts for about 45 percent of Kenya’s total wealth and more than 60 percent of the country’s millionaires. It is also emerging as one of Africa’s leading fintech hubs, home to companies such as M-Pesa, Cellulant and Tala.’

Amoils believes these attributes could eventually turn the traditional wealth-migration equation on its head, with Kenya not merely exporting wealthy residents in search of alternative jurisdictions, but potentially attracting them.

‘We see Kenya possibly becoming a HNWI retirement destination of the future, as it is home to several top eco-estates which are becoming increasingly popular among the world’s wealthy,’ he says.

Kenya, he adds, also has a well-developed luxury residential sector, giving it an edge over several of its East African neighbours.

Standing through a sunroof or leaning out of a car window looks like harmless fun to many Kenyans. It happens often during wedding convoys, on game drives, and in slow-moving traffic.

But under Kenyan law, this is a criminal offence, and it carries real consequences spanning small fines to prison terms, and manslaughter charges when someone falls and dies.

Advocate Mutua Josphat of F.M. Muteti and Co says many Kenyans misunderstand how strict the law actually is.

‘The law measures this by movement and location, not speed, intent, or perceived fun,’ he says. He points to Section 61 of the Traffic Act, Cap 403, which bars any person from riding or being carried outside a vehicle, including on the footboard, tailboard, steps, mudguards, canopy, or roof, except when testing or repairing the vehicle.

Rule 80 of the Traffic Rules adds another layer, stopping a driver or passenger from letting a body part stick outside a moving vehicle unless it is for giving a signal, responding to an emergency, or fixing the car.

He explains that the offence begins the exact moment a vehicle starts moving on a public road. ‘The offence occurs once the vehicle is in motion,’ he says, adding that a car does not need to be speeding for the law to apply.

Advocate Mutua also links this to Rule 22A of the Traffic Rules, which requires seatbelts while a vehicle is in motion. A person standing through a sunroof cannot wear a seatbelt, breaking two rules simultaneously. He further notes that the Traffic Act applies to all public roads, highways, avenues, and public access routes.

‘If the car is moving on a public road, the offence is committed,’ he says. ‘If it is on a private road, no.’

There is no general right for private car owners to allow this behaviour, but a few narrow legal exceptions exist, he explains. On property such as farms or private tracks closed to the public, the Traffic Act simply does not apply, though civil negligence claims could still follow if someone gets hurt.

‘Section 120 of the Traffic Act also gives the Cabinet Secretary for Transport power to exempt specific vehicles, persons, or events through a notice published in the Kenya Gazette, usually covering presidential processions, licensed campaign caravans, and film crews working under police supervision,’ he says. ‘Game reserves and national parks form the last exception, where standing through pop-up roofs or sunroofs is permitted for game viewing under wildlife conservation rules.’

Mutua is firm that popular belief does not change legal reality, especially when it comes to wedding convoys. ‘There is no Gazette notice granting a blanket or temporary exemption to wedding convoys, funeral processions, or celebratory parades,’ he says.

‘The belief that wedding convoys are exempt from Rule 80 or seatbelt mandates is a legal myth.’

The common sight of police officers allowing such convoys to pass unbothered, he explains, is simply a matter of selective enforcement.

‘A passenger standing through a sunroof during a slow moving wedding convoy commits the same offence as someone doing it at high speed on a highway, and being at a wedding carries no weight as a legal defence if an accident happens,’ he says.

On the question of who bears responsibility, liability does not fall on one person alone, he explains. ‘It is shared across the passenger, the driver, and the vehicle owner,’ he says. ‘The passenger is the direct offender under Rule 80 and Rule 22A, and faces an instant fine for extending a body part outside the vehicle or removing a seatbelt while it moves.’

The driver carries a heavier burden because of the control they hold over the vehicle.

‘Sections 55 and 59 of the Traffic Act make it an offence for a driver to permit a passenger to ride in a dangerous position, and if that conduct leads to an accident, injury, or death, the driver can face charges of dangerous driving or causing death by dangerous driving under Section 46 of the Act,’ he explains.

He lays out how the penalties vary depending on how serious the conduct is.

‘A passenger who lets a body part protrude from a moving vehicle faces an instant fine of Sh1,000 under Rule 80, and an additional Sh500 for the seatbelt breach under Rule 22A, since standing or hanging out prevents the use of a safety belt,’ he says. Where the conduct goes further, such as riding on the roof, sitting on a window frame, or hanging off a door, and the person refuses a police order to return to a safe position, Section 61 subsections 3 and 4 of the Traffic Act apply, he says.

‘A conviction under this section can bring a fine of up to Sh10,000, imprisonment for up to one month, or both,’ Mutua says.

Drivers who allow such conduct face far steeper consequences. He says permitting a passenger to ride dangerously can lead to charges of reckless or dangerous driving under Section 47, which carries substantial court fines, imprisonment of up to two years, and a mandatory judicial suspension of the driver’s licence.

‘Should the passenger fall and die, the charge escalates to causing death by dangerous driving under Section 46, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison,’ he says.

Mutua also points to the National Transport and Safety Authority’s digital enforcement system, which logs demerit points against a driver’s smart licence record. ‘Every licence starts with 20 points, and safety violations trigger automatic deductions that can lead to suspension or revocation,’ he says.

To show how these rules play out in real disputes, Mutua cites the case of Kariuki and 2 Others versus Kogi, Civil Appeal E002 of 2021, decided at the High Court.

‘The respondent, Kogi, was travelling aboard a fourteen seater Toyota matatu on the Molo-Olenguruone road when he fell off the vehicle while hanging onto its door,’ he explains. ‘The driver swerved to avoid potholes, causing Kogi to lose his grip and sustain serious injuries.’

The driver and the registered owner, according to him, argued they owed no duty of care since the passenger had voluntarily chosen to hang outside, and that the driver did not know anyone was hanging on.

‘Kogi countered that the driver ought to have noticed him through the side mirrors, and that swerving at speed amounted to negligence,’ he says.

‘Both the Magistrates’ Court and the High Court on appeal held the driver and the vehicle owner jointly and severally liable, but applied the principle of contributory negligence, splitting the blame equally between the driver and the victim.’

He adds that the court awarded Sh 3.5 million in general damages and medical expenses, then reduced the payout by half to reflect the victim’s own reckless conduct.

He explains that the Children Act of 2022 places a duty on parents to protect children from physical harm, abuse, and neglect, and that knowingly allowing a child to bypass safety restraints can amount to statutory child neglect. ‘Agencies such as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and child protection officers, he says, can bring proceedings against a parent found to have exposed a child to such risk,’ Says Mutua.

He also cites Section 243 of the Penal Code, Cap 63, which criminalises rash or negligent conduct in a public way that endangers human life.

‘A parent who allows a child to protrude from a moving vehicle can be charged under this section for reckless endangerment,’ he says, adding that if the vehicle swerves or collides and the child is hurt or killed, the parent could face prosecution for gross negligence or manslaughter.

He notes that beyond criminal charges, such conduct can be raised in family court as evidence of parental unfitness, since the Children’s Court always places the best interest of the child first.

Public service vehicles carry their own set of rules, and matatus in particular see frequent violations.

He explains that conductors and passengers who hang from doorways, swing off footboards, or ride on the roof break Section 61 of the Traffic Act, which bars anyone from being carried outside a moving vehicle. PSV regulations, he adds, also require doors to remain closed while the vehicle is in motion.

‘Responsibility spreads across four parties in these cases, the individual doing the hanging, the driver, the conductor, and the vehicle owner or SACCO,’ he says. The individual faces a direct charge under Section 61, and police officers can order them off the vehicle under Section 61 subsection 3, he explains. A conductor caught engaging in such conduct can also lose their NTSA licence and badge, according to him.

The driver of a PSV carries the heaviest operational responsibility. Sections 58 and 103 of the Traffic Act, he explains, make it an offence for a driver to permit a conductor or passenger to ride dangerously or to operate with open doors, exposing them to fines, licence endorsements, or driving bans.

Section 110, he adds, presumes the registered owner responsible for offences involving their vehicle unless they can prove it happened without their knowledge or consent.

‘The National Transport and Safety Authority can also hold SACCOs and transport companies jointly responsible for the conduct of their crews, and can suspend a vehicle’s roadworthiness certificate, revoke a route licence, or ground an entire fleet for repeated violations,’ he says.

He says the case leaves a clear lesson for drivers and vehicle owners alike. ‘Drivers cannot turn a blind eye to safety,’ he says.

He adds that sudden swerving or careless manoeuvres only deepen a driver’s fault in court, even in cases where the injured person also shares some of the blame, and that vicarious liability continues to bind vehicle owners for the conduct of their drivers on Kenyan roads.

Kenya is one year away from the next General Election, and the political conversation is already taking shape. New political formations are being launched, alliances are being tested and leaders are positioning themselves for the contest ahead. But beneath the speeches and declarations is another contest that will matter: the contest over what Kenyans believe to be true.

That contest is taking place in a very different information environment from previous elections. The Media Council of Kenya’s 2024 State of the Media Report found that social media had become the primary source of news for 33 percent of Kenyans, ahead of television at 31 percent and radio at 26 percent.

Yet social media was trusted less for news than television or radio. People are consuming information in one place and checking it somewhere else.

This behaviour extends beyond politics. A government statement may be followed by competing accounts online.

A corporate announcement can be discussed by employees in private channels and tested against customer experiences. A development organisation’s claims about impact can be considered alongside what beneficiaries, partners and independent observers say.

The same trust dynamics we see in politics are playing out in boardrooms, donor meetings, customer interactions and dinner-table conversations.

The official account is increasingly one input among many.

For organisations, that changes the nature of trust. People are no longer simply receiving information. They are assessing it against what they already know, what others are saying and what they experience for themselves.

The World Giving Report 2025 found that 61 percent of Kenyans want more information about charitable impact before giving more. That is a clear indication that stakeholders increasingly want organisations to substantiate their claims.

Yet trust is not disappearing. Edelman’s 2025 Kenya Trust Barometer found that 76 percent of respondents trusted NGOs and 72 percent trusted business to do what is right. People still trust organisations. But that trust is conditional, and organisations have to keep earning it.

This is where leadership matters. Organisations can treat trust as a communications problem, particularly when facing difficult decisions or reputational risk. But a well-crafted statement cannot compensate for a persistent gap between what an organisation says and what people experience. When that gap becomes visible, subsequent messages are judged against it.

This also makes the role of communications more important, not less. When everyone can publish, challenge, compare and interpret information, organisations need people who understand how information moves, how audiences make sense of it, where credibility breaks down and how leadership decisions will be received.

That role goes beyond finding the right words. Communications professionals can help leaders anticipate legitimate questions, identify where an organisation’s position may be unclear, explain difficult decisions and communicate uncertainty without creating confusion. They can also challenge the temptation to present a version of events that cannot withstand scrutiny.

That requires communications to be involved before a decision becomes an announcement. By then, much of the credibility work may already have been done, or lost.

The lesson is straightforward. Truth cannot be created by communications, and credibility cannot be sustained by messaging alone. They are shaped by leadership decisions, organisational behaviour and the consistency between what is said and what people can see for themselves.

In an information environment where every official account can be tested against another source, trust will increasingly belong to organisations whose words hold up beyond the statement itself. That makes truth a leadership responsibility and responsible communication a critical organisational capability.

Sameer Africa net profit for the six months ended June 2026 grew 19.8 percent to Sh103.88 million, up from Sh86.67 million on reduced operating expenses.

The profit growth was despite a decline in revenue to Sh205.75 million from Sh220.34 million posted in the preceding similar period.

Its operating costs dropped by 25.9 percent to Sh83.3 million from Sh112.4 million, helping grow the bottom line during the review period.

Sameer continues to find new drive in its rental business, marking a decisive turnaround after the struggles of its tyre unit, which was once the mainstay of its operations.

The firm’s bet on real estate business, where it lets out investment properties including leasehold land, residential houses and commercial properties, is paying off. The half-year performance looks set to keep it in profits for the seventh straight year.

‘Our operational focus remains on safeguarding our portfolio against vacancy risks and retaining high-quality tenants. We will continue to invest in our tenant relationships to establish a resilient, sustainable income base as the operating environment normalises,’ said Sameer.

The latest profit has further cut Sameer’s accumulated loss in its books of account to Sh102.84 million at the end of June from Sh206.72 million at the end of December last year. The six consecutive years of profit-making have cut the accumulated losses from Sh1.1 billion it carried in 2020.

Accounts showed the firm has narrowed its negative working capital-the difference between current assets and current liabilities- to Sh196.34 million compared with negative Sh383.4 million in the preceding similar period last year.

Sameer Africa has been pushing to dispose of its undeveloped 3.75-acre parcel of land to boost its liquidity since 2022. However, the deal has been delayed.

The firm had said it hoped to complete the transaction in June but now says the board has granted ‘a further extension of six months to December this year.

Between 2014 and 2019, Sameer was in losses, with the highlight coming in 2019 when it posted a record loss of Sh1.09 billion. The firm then decided to shift its focus to real estate.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm was for 50 years synonymous with taglines such as ‘Africa rides on Yana tyres,’ which signified one of its popular products called Yana tyres.

However, the firm shifted from manufacturing to importing tyres in 2016, citing stiff competition from cheap tyres from markets such as China. Then in April 2020, Sameer dropped a shocker by stopping the tyre import business.

Established in Kenya in 1969 as Firestone East Africa Limited, the company switched its principal business from tyre manufacturing to real estate in a bid to revive its fortunes. It now describes its principal activity as letting investment properties.

But what if these new insights are really ancient wisdom? Is there anything new under the management sun? Does the art and science of management depend less on inventing new ideas than on remembering what is already known? Are the really sharp managers curious, able to see without judging, taking an idea from biology or physics, and profitably applying it in their organisation?

Every few months, a new management concept arrives. It’s a long list: agile, design thinking, disruptive innovation, customer centricity, ecosystems, stakeholder capitalism, lean management, platform strategy, transformational leadership, ESG and now all things artificial intelligence (AI). Like a clip on TikTok, each new idea is catchy, almost too seductive.

But the inconvenient question is: How much of business thinking is genuinely new? Is much of modern management really old wine in new bottles?

Strategy is not a plan

A plan is not a strategy. Today, most managers confuse [relatively easy] planning with creating [a usually tricky] strategy. Not realising that planning and strategy, though usually lumped together are two different things. Strangely, ancient practitioners of strategy intuitively knew they were not the same.

Lawrence Freedman’s classic tome, Strategy – A History covers the practice of strategy almost from the beginning of time, up to our high tech age. Lesson learned is that the idea of the master strategist is a bit of a myth, as is having a decisive victory that lasts. At best, history shows strategy gives one a temporary advantage.

In 331 BC, a 21-year old Alexander the Great with a force of 50,000 did not defeat Darius with an army of one million with just a plan. Alexander had a distinctive insight that others missed, and carried out his strategy in a unique way.

Sun Tzu, more than 2,000 years ago writing in The Art of War understood something that many managers still struggle with. You do not have to beat your competitor at everything. You just have to find the conditions under which you can win.

Agile is ancient

Current wisdom is that the world is too uncertain for detailed long-term plans. Instead, organisations should experiment, learn quickly, respond to feedback and adapt. Silicon Valley made this fashionable, but uncertainty did not begin with the internet.

Military commanders have always known that carefully prepared plans can collapse when reality intervenes.

‘Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth,’ advised Mike Tyson. Entrepreneurs, farmers and parents all know it.

Agile idea is brutally simple: act – observe – learn – adapt. This is our default programming survival mechanism. What is different today is that digital tech allows organisations to perform this cycle extraordinarily quickly.

Toyota didn’t invent frugality

Frugality is one of the three characteristics of good management, according to The Economist. Frugality does not mean being cheap and stingy in an Oliver Twist, Dickensian like way. It means being economical with resources. Lavish spending on shinny corporate bling is a flashing red light warning signal.

Practicing lean management, Toyota became famous for eliminating waste, improving processes and focusing resources on activities that create value.

But the underlying idea is hardly new. Every successful farmer who avoided wasting seed, every craftsman who avoided wasting materials and every merchant who protected scarce capital was practicing an older form of lean management. Toyota did not invent the idea of avoiding waste, it just turned it into a disciplined organisational system.

Retailer Walmart, with $680 billion in revenues and five percent growth in 2025 is famous for following founder Sam Walton’s frugal philosophy. Managers are expected to treat every corporate or store dollar as sacred, finding ways to reduce waste and optimise margins.

With a lean 5-tier management structure — from the CEO to shop assistant who joined yesterday — senior executives fly economy and take out their own trash.

Platform thinking

Goodbye linear ‘bricks and mortar’ business models. Platforms are the favoured operating model for seven of the world’s 12 largest corporations, according McKinsey.

The use of hubs in design in the flow of information, goods and services has been in existence since Roman times, more than 2,000 years ago. Like hubs, platforms have been in existence for millennia. For example, a local village market, is a ‘platform’ bringing together buyers and sellers.

In 2026, a majority of the most valuable global enterprises rely on digital communities, networks, and marketplaces rather than traditional linear pipelines. In just over the last 15 plus years, the idea of a platform has changed radically. Thanks to ICT increases in processing and storage capacity, platforms are a disruptive innovation game changer that has transformed companies and industry sectors.

An example of this disruptive innovation in Kenya would be M-Pesa and globally, the introduction of platforms like, for instance, Amazon, Google, Uber, Facebook, Airbnb that have changed the face of how we do business forever.

For instance, Airbnb that just started in mid 2008 sold more rooms last year than Hilton that has been in business for 100 years. [Yet, it does not own any properties.] Platforms represent a radical shift in business models, simply bringing together buyers and sellers.

What is actually wrong here?

What is the root cause problem? – may be the most important question a manager can ask. If the underlying problem is poor management, no amount of agile methodology will fix it.

Without a competitive advantage, another strategic planning retreat will not manufacture one. Chasing these ideas may define your career.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) lost Sh62.7 billion worth of Kenya’s import business in the first half of the year, as the Iran war disrupted Middle East fuel supply chains.

The collapse pushed the UAE from Kenya’s second-largest source of imports to fourth, as Saudi Arabia emerged as a major beneficiary of the disruption while India moved into second place.

Kenya’s imports from the UAE fell 35.1 percent to Sh115.9 billion in the six months to June, from Sh178.7 billion a year earlier, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

The decline accelerated after the conflict began, with Kenya’s purchases from the UAE dropping by Sh60.6 billion, or 49.4 percent, to Sh62.2 billion between March and June. The imports halved from Sh122.8 billion in the four months last year.

The UAE is a top supplier of petroleum products to Kenya, including premium petrol, jet fuel and residual fuel oils used in marine and industrial applications.

The sharp decline coincided with disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global energy supplies and a major gateway for Gulf oil exporters.

The conflict forced oil producers and importers to rethink supply routes, with countries possessing alternative infrastructure to bypass Hormuz gaining an advantage as security risks increased for vessels using the waterway.

The UAE’s decline was significant because Kenya’s overall import bill expanded to Sh292.5 billion, or 21.9 percent, to Sh1.63 trillion during the first half.

This means that the UAE’s collapse was not driven by a broad contraction in Kenya’s demand for imported goods.

Instead, much of the growth was concentrated in other major suppliers, particularly China, India and Saudi Arabia.

China retained the top position after its shipments rose 37.2 percent to Sh417.8 billion, while India moved into second place after imports jumped Sh75.5 billion, or 54.1 percent, to Sh215.2 billion.

Saudi Arabia recorded the biggest increase, with imports surging Sh124.2 billion, or 484.4 percent, to Sh149.8 billion, lifting the kingdom from sixth place last year to third.

The contrast between the two Gulf suppliers is especially striking because Saudi Arabia’s main exports to Kenya included diesel and premium petrol, products that compete directly with some of the UAE’s leading shipments.

Saudi Arabia accounted for 56.4 percent of Kenya’s combined imports from the two Gulf states in the first half, compared with 12.5 percent a year earlier. The UAE’s share fell to 43.6 percent from 87.5 percent.

The reversal becomes more dramatic when you analyse the Gulf import numbers over two years. The KNBS numbers show Kenya imported Sh157.9 billion from the UAE in the first half of 2024 against Sh20.1 billion from Saudi Arabia.

By the first half of 2026, Saudi Arabia had overtaken the UAE, with its shipments reaching Sh149.8 billion against Sh115.9 billion from the UAE.

The combined value of imports from the two Gulf states nevertheless increased by Sh61.5 billion to Sh265.8 billion in the January-June period, from Sh204.3 billion a year earlier.

The figures suggest Kenya’s demand for Gulf fuel did not disappear during the Middle East conflict but was increasingly supplied by Saudi Arabia, highlighting how the war reshaped regional supply chains rather than simply reducing trade.

Saudi Arabia’s rise was aided by its ability to move crude to the Red Sea through its East-West Pipeline, reducing reliance on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The 1,200-kilometre pipeline gave Saudi Arabia an alternative export route as the conflict increased risks around the strategic waterway.

Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom’s oil export giant, has said its pipeline, storage facilities and export terminals helped it maintain business continuity despite disruption to commercial shipping.

The trade route shift also strengthened Saudi Arabia’s position in Kenya’s government-to-government fuel import programme, which allows the country to source petrol, diesel and jet fuel from Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Emirates National Oil Company on 180-day credit terms.

Before the conflict, UAE suppliers were major participants in the arrangement. The latest KNBS numbers, however, show Saudi Arabia has rapidly overtaken the UAE as Kenya’s dominant Gulf supplier.

China and Saudi Arabia together accounted for 81.2 percent of the increase in Kenya’s import bill, adding a combined Sh237.4 billion during the six months.

Saudi Arabia alone contributed 42.5 percent of the increase, while China accounted for 38.7 percent, highlighting how infrastructure demand and changing Middle East fuel supplies concentrated Kenya’s import growth in a handful of markets.

The UAE was only one among Kenya’s four largest import sources in the first half of last year to record a major decline this year.

Imports from Japan fell by Sh2.4 billion, or 3.5 percent, to Sh66.3 billion, while those from the US dropped by Sh3.9 billion, or 5.5 percent, to Sh66.49 billion.

Two weeks ago, we opened the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) Kenya office in Nairobi. I told the room at the Serena that we are here, that we are here to stay, and that we are committed to the professionalisation of procurement across this continent.

That was not a courtesy line. It was a judgement about where this profession is going and about Kenya’s place in it.

For years, procurement across East Africa has been treated as a back-office function: raise the order, chase the supplier, keep the lights on. That era is ending.

Where cost was once the primary driver of supply, the conversation now centres on resilience in both the private and public sectors. But the obstacle is not efficiency. It is fragmentation.

Suppliers, standards, data and financing sit in separate silos, and every familiar complaint traces back to that single condition. A compliant, creditworthy supplier in Nairobi is often unverifiable in Kampala or Kigali because no shared regional framework exists for supplier vetting or ethics accreditation.

Certification remains the exception rather than the norm. This is not a talent shortage but a recognition gap. And digitisation without a professionalised workforce does not fix fragmentation. It only makes it happen faster.

Standards have to sit within how regulators license and audit, not only within how a professional body certifies. Now add artificial intelligence. Procurement is acquiring a second workforce: agents that draft, analyse and, under human authority, execute.

The professional of 2031 will manage people and machines alike and will need to govern AI as much as use it. Whose data trained it?

Who carries liability when it buys incorrectly? Those questions sit at the centre of the Great Conversation, the global consultation we are running on the skills this profession will need as it absorbs geopolitical disruption, sustainability obligations and technological change.

Here is my caution: Africa should not automate poverty or digitise fragmentation.

The task is not to automate scarcity. It is to multiply productive capacity by aggregating scattered demand, verifying suppliers across borders and connecting them to working capital.

Kenya’s case is no longer that it can become East Africa’s procurement hub. It already is one, which is why we started here.

On March 2 and 3, Nairobi will host a pan-African procurement conference, drawing professionals from across the continent. By then, the question will not be whether Kenya is the gateway to the region. It will be what Kenya builds once everyone is through the gate.

So, to every procurement professional reading this-in a ministry, a bank or a bottling plant-it is time to own the outcome.

Jackfruit production in Kenya jumped nearly 95-fold between 2023 and 2025, driven by expanding cultivation and growing interest in a fruit with multiple food uses and value-addition potential.

Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) data shows output rose from 67 tonnes in 2023 to 1,018 tonnes in 2024, before reaching 6,364.1 tonnes last year.

The area under jackfruit also increased from 29 hectares in 2023 to 140.1 hectares in 2025, while the crop’s generated value rose from Sh6.7 million to Sh635.6 million.

The expansion comes as farmers and researchers increasingly explore underutilised fruits for food, income and processing, with jackfruit offering several uses beyond its traditional fresh consumption.

The ripe fruit is eaten fresh or processed into juice, jam, jelly, candies, dried chips and other products, while immature fruit can be cooked or pickled.

Its seeds are also edible after boiling or roasting and can be dried and milled into flour for bread, biscuits, cakes, noodles and other processed foods.

India is the world’s largest producer of jackfruit, growing about 1.4 million metric tonnes each year.

Other top producers include Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, and Nepal.

In Kenya, Busia County grows the highest amount of jackfruit, accounting for approximately 65 percent of the country’s total production.

Researchers say jackfruit seeds contain substantial starch, protein and dietary fibre, increasing interest in their use as ingredients while reducing waste from fruit-processing.

Kenya has previously explored commercialising the fruit through value addition, with authorities identifying processing as a way of reducing losses and transport costs associated with bulky fresh fruit.

The sharp increase in Kenya’s reported production, however, comes from a relatively small base, and will require sustained markets and processing capacity to scale.

The growth also comes as Kenya’s wider fruit industry continues expanding, with total fruit production value rising from Sh83.71 billion in 2021 to Sh111.88 billion in 2025.

Established crops continue to dominate the sector, with bananas generating Sh35.6 billion in 2025, followed by avocados at Sh25.2 billion and mangoes at Sh19.1 billion.

Pineapples generated Sh6.1 billion while oranges contributed Sh5.7 billion.

Meru led the country’s fruit production in 2025 with 738,317.7 tonnes, followed by Murang’a with 517,238.42 tonnes, Lamu with 318,746 tonnes and Kilifi with 225,252.3 tonnes.

Lenders are seeing a growing demand for salary advances and other payslip-backed short-term digital loans as workers increasingly turn to credit to bridge cash-flow gaps between paydays.

The trend is providing banks and digital lenders with a growing market as salaried customers seek quick access to funds for emergencies, bills, school fees and other financial obligations.

Fresh disclosures show that Co-operative Bank of Kenya disbursed Sh41billion on its short-term mobile credit platform, e-flexi, between January and July 2026, up from Sh35.75 billion in a similar period of 2025. Salary advances from the Co-operative Bank of Kenya form a major share of its digital lending.

The growth represents a 14.7 percent increase and points to the rising appetite for short-term credit among salaried workers.

Banks, including KCB, Equity and NCBA, also offer salary-linked credit products, although they do not publicly disclose disbursement figures for the products.

Disclosures by digital lenders such as Centum Investment’s subsidiary called Jafari Credit, and Little Pesa, founded by former banker Rakesh Kashyap, also point to a growing market for short-term salary-backed credit for consumption.

Co-op Bank says it offers salary advances ranging from Sh10,000 to Sh1 million and repayment periods of up to one year for customers who have operated salary accounts for at least three months.

The lender says demand for salary advances typically peaks between the 20th day of the month and the fifth day of the following month, coinciding with salary processing periods. It added that borrowing also tends to rise during back-to-school periods and the festive season.

‘The product’s popularity is driven by its ability to help customers meet short-term financial obligations, address emergencies, and complete transactions when account balances are insufficient. Customers also benefit from a seamless digital experience, with loan limits, borrowing, and repayments all digitized,’ said Co-op Bank.

The trend is also being seen among non-bank lenders targeting salaried customers. More digital lenders are also targeting salaried workers, attracted by the predictability of their income and the ability to use digital platforms to assess and disburse loans quickly.

Little Pesa, founded by former M-Oriental Bank Kenya CEO Rakesh Kashyap, focuses exclusively on short-term unsecured loans to salaried customers.

Mr Kashyap said the lender had seen increased demand for larger loans of up to Sh500,000, with borrowers preferring longer and more flexible repayment periods.

The shift towards larger loans and longer repayment periods points to changing borrowing patterns among salaried workers, with customers seeking more time to spread repayments as their financial obligations increase.

‘They are finding it difficult to take smaller loans and repay within a month. We are seeing more demand for relatively higher loans of up to Sh500,000 which come with flexible repayment periods of up to a year. We expect the appetite for loans with flexible repayment periods to continue rising,’ said Mr Kashyap.

Jafari Credit increased lending to civil servants by 10.1 percent to Sh413 million in the year ended March 2026 from Sh375 million a year earlier. Cumulative lending since its launch in 2022 has reached Sh1.4 billion.

The lender has focused on civil servants, including teachers, police officers and doctors, whose predictable incomes provide a basis for salary-backed lending.

Jafari Credit chief executive Edwin Munyiri said the lender was seeing continued demand for affordable and accessible credit among salaried workers.

‘Maintaining an NPL rate of five percent while growing our loan book shows that it is possible to scale sustainably without compromising credit quality,’ said Edwin Munyiri, CEO at Jafari.

Jafari is targeting further growth in the segment, with plans to deploy up to Sh800 million in civil servant loans in the year to March 2027.

Co-op says its E-Flexi product averages Sh6 billion in disbursements every month and has so far lent out Sh450 billion since launch in 2017. It expects monthly salary cycles, education-related expenses and seasonal spending to remain key drivers of demand.

Lenders use transaction histories, income patterns and digital credit scoring to determine borrowing limits and assess repayment capacity.

The strong uptake for salary advances comes as households face competing financial demands, with workers increasingly looking for flexible ways to manage expenses before the next salary.

Co-op and Jafari say they have stepped up the use of artificial intelligence in credit appraisal and customer engagement, helping them expand lending while maintaining credit quality.

‘A key differentiator is our robust AI-powered credit scoring engine, which uses customer transaction history and income patterns to allocate borrowing limits, enabling customers to access credit quickly without paperwork,’ said Co-op Bank.

In May this year the President William Ruto announced that the billion dollar data centre planned by Microsoft and G42 at Olkaria, Naivasha couldn’t proceed as designed, because turning it on would have meant switching off power to a large part of the country.

The first phase alone was to draw 100 megawatts from a grid whose peak demand already presses against its installed capacity.

Whatever one thinks of the decision, it told us something uncomfortable. The investment was announced, celebrated and timetabled before the most basic questions about what it would take from Kenya, and what Kenya would get in return, had been answered.

Technology is not new to us. It has been reorganising our economies, our work and our social lives for decades, from the mobile money revolution onwards. What is new is its ubiquity. Kenyans now talk to chatbots, borrow from apps whose algorithms score their creditworthiness in seconds, and file taxes through systems that decide, invisibly, who gets flagged for audit.

is a risk. All of this runs on physical infrastructure, on data centres and cloud services that consume land, water and electricity, and almost none of that infrastructure is ours.

Our data crosses borders to be stored and processed elsewhere, then sold back to us as services. If the coming decade of African life will be computed, the question of who owns and hosts the computation is a question of economic sovereignty, as consequential as the ownership of railways and ports was a century ago.

This is why I resist the notion of a foreign technology company arriving, building the infrastructure, collecting the incentives and owning the asset.

My research team has spent this year, under our Project TERRA work on technology, equality and regulatory risk assessment, mapping out data centres, their ownership, energy and water demands, and the tax treatment they enjoy to establish what has been given away, and to whom.

The pattern that emerges is familiar from the extractive industries. Host countries provide the land, the water, the power and the tax holidays. The value created from the data processed in these facilities is booked elsewhere.

A data centre can be an extraction site wearing the costume of development, and unless the fiscal terms are negotiated with open eyes, we will repeat with our data the history we lived with our minerals.

However, the answer is not to refuse the technology. It is to govern it before it hardens into infrastructure, and here Kenya already possesses an instrument it underuses, the regulatory sandbox. The Capital Markets Authority has operated one for financial products since 2019, and the Communications Authority published a framework for emerging technologies in 2023.

A sandbox allows the regulator and the innovator to test a product, and crucially to test the rules themselves, in a controlled environment before anything is rolled out at national scale. We should be doing precisely this for data infrastructure and for algorithmic systems. Before another data centre incentive is signed, its revenue cost, environmental burden and community benefit should be modelled and tested against evidence.

Before an algorithm is deployed in tax administration, credit scoring or social protection, it should be audited for bias inside a sandbox, with disclosure standards and a route to redress agreed in advance. This is how a country writes its own protocols for engaging technology rather than inheriting protocols written in California or Abu Dhabi.

Our legal architecture is not empty. The constitution demands public participation in policy, protects privacy, guarantees equality and requires openness and accountability in public finance. The Data Protection Act has been in force since 2019.

The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025 to 2030 was launched last year, and the Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026 now before the Senate proposes a commissioner and a risk based classification of artificial intelligence systems.

These are necessary. None of them is sufficient, because they largely regulate the technology while remaining silent on the political economy beneath it, on who finances the infrastructure, who forgoes the revenue, who bears the environmental cost and whose interests the algorithms encode.

A commissioner who can audit an algorithm but cannot question the tax holiday granted to the data centre it runs on is governing half the problem.

Technology governance, properly understood, is fiscal governance. It asks the oldest questions of public finance, who pays, who benefits and who decides, about the newest machinery of our lives.

Kenya has the constitutional values, the regulatory precedents and the intellectual capacity to answer those questions for itself. What it mustn’t do is answer them after the concrete has been poured.

The Olkaria pause was an accident of power supply. The next pause should be deliberate, a country taking the time to write its own rules.