Category: Business Daily

The dismal science is a derogatory, informal moniker for economics.

Usually used in critique of the field’s methodologies or policy influence in the face of current economic challenges, the term was coined by Scottish anti-abolitionist Thomas Carlyle in 1849 in a bitter attack on classical economists’ arguments for the emancipation of black slaves.

I had the difficult but pleasant task of explaining the economy, current business conditions and taxes, on radio and television, last Monday morning.

In my mother tongue! Well, there are many concepts on the subject for which I could not find Kikuyu words. It is likely, therefore, that I performed dismally, leaving more questions than answers!

A social science, economics studies how societies manage limited resources to produce, distribute, and consume goods and services. It analyses the choices that individuals, businesses, and governments make in the face of scarcity. It looks at the behaviour of individuals and firms (microeconomics), and the economy as a whole (macroeconomics).

For moral and other reasons you cannot use laboratory experimentation like say in physics or chemistry. However, economists routinely design clever ‘experiments’ to explain behaviour.

For instance, does tribalism have economic roots? The big ideas in economics are scarcity, supply and demand, costs, benefits, and incentives.

Scarcity arises because human beings have unlimited wants, but limited resources. This forces individuals, families, counties and nations, to make choices about how to allocate what they have. Since the entire county cannot fit in one decision-making meeting, we elect MCAs to make the county choices. Ditto the National Assembly.

Is Kenya living beyond its means?, the popular interviewer asked me. We seem unable to debate the expenditure side of the budget, I replied.

Our elected representatives pass budgets with ever-growing deficits. That means more borrowing. Oddly, they then turn around and criticise government borrowing.

Availability of products or services and our desires for them, is supply and demand. Their interaction determines market prices. Too much demand creates inflation.

The classic solution to inflation is to increase the cost of money – slowing down credit to persons and private sector – thus reduce demand, to create a balance with supply.

In big English, the government effort to create balance between supply and demand is called monetary policy. Upon succeeding in taming inflation, we make money cheaper, increasing demand. But as we have seen in recent times, commercial banks, who are the transmission mechanism for those efforts, do not always play ball.

Incentives motivate individuals and businesses to act in a certain way, influencing economic decisions. Costs and benefits is the idea of evaluating the trade-offs involved in any decision, weighing the advantages against the disadvantages.

If you are a bank manager, it is much easier to lend to government, which is relatively risk free, than to look for small businesses in Gikomba to lend to.

Inflation, economic growth, unemployment, and public policy affect the entire economy and not just an individual firm, hence the term macroeconomics.

The behaviour of individual economic agents such as households and firms, and their resource allocation decisions are often based on feelings particularly trust and confidence.

When individuals and firms believe that the future will be bright – consumer and business confidence – they will tend to increase consumption and investments, and borrow to do so. Conversely, when they are pessimistic about the future, they slow down.

This is true even when actual data, such as the level of inflation or the stability of the exchange rate, may suggest otherwise. So today, the macros are right, but sentiment has stubbornly refused to improve. As a result, we have no money in our pockets, and find difficult to believe that inflation is down.

Economics has wide application. It is centrestage in finance, business, engineering, politics, psychology, and health. Its ideas shape our understanding of choices, how markets function, and what factors influence the overall economic health of our republic.

Today, government is criticised for crowding out the private sector in the credit market, and inability to fix the failed credit transmission mechanism.

Are we overtaxed, the interviewer asked? Though pay-slips are feeling the weight, as a nation we are not.

The proportion of national income going to taxes is 14 percent, compared to Uganda where it is 13.6 percent. Some of the highest tax-to-GDP ratios in Africa are in Tunisia (33.5 percent), South Africa (26 percent), and Morocco (22 percent). The average for Africa is 16 percent, Asia-Pacific (19.8 percent) and OECD (34.1 percent).

Safaricom has received regulatory approval to issue a Sh40 billion public bond for infrastructure upgrades in Kenya and Ethiopia, making it the largest corporate bond to be listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

The telecoms operator will inform investors on Thursday that it will issue the bond in tranches, offering a further boost to Kenya’s corporate bond market-where East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) has just raised Sh16.7 billion.

The firm will issue the first tranche once it has agreed on the pricing and tenure of the bond, with the finer details of the security yet to be approved by the Capital Market Authority (CMA).

Safaricom is seeking billions of shillings to broaden its 4G and 5G networks as it ramps up its data business to offset a decline in mobile calls, where it has seen a small revenue fall due to saturation.

Data is one of Safaricom’s fastest-growing revenue lines and it hopes that increased smartphone usage will boost the business further.

In Ethiopia, the telecoms operator plans to boost its network expansion and ease cash flow for the subsidiary where it owns a 53.7 percent stake.

‘Under the MTN [medium-term note] Programme, the company may issue various forms of notes, including green notes, social notes or sustainability notes,’ the firm says in a regulatory notice that will be made public tomorrow.

‘The issuance of tranche 1 is subject to the determination of the final commercial terms of the offer and approval by the CMA of the corresponding pricing supplement.’

The telecoms operator closed its half-year period ending September 2025 with a debt of Sh117 billion, including Sh61.2 billion in long-term borrowings and Sh55 billion in short-term borrowings.

Earlier, it tapped a Sh30 billion sustainability-linked loan or green bond from a consortium of local banks, including KCB, Absa Bank Kenya, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya and Stanbic Bank Kenya.

A green bond is a type of fixed-income instrument that is specifically earmarked to raise money for climate and environmental projects.

Safaricom’s debt and finance costs have increased recently, compounded by capital spending at its new business in Ethiopia.

It betted on the facility to accelerate its transition to becoming a technology company, reduce its carbon footprint, monitor its social impact and enhance its progress on gender diversity.

Safaricom will likely deploy proceeds from the bond to meet its growth targets for the financial year ending in March 2026, which include scaling 4G and 5G devices in Kenya and financing its commercial scaling activity in Ethiopia.

The telco’s capital expenditure for the period is estimated at between Sh72 billion and Sh78 billion where spending on Kenya is projected at between Sh54billion and Sh57 billion.

It targets spending between Sh18 billion and Sh21 billion for Ethiopia.

‘In Kenya we remain focused on executing our strategy through segment-led execution and integrated solution and our consumer business will deepen partnerships to accelerate 4G+ device access and availability alongside scaling content solutions,’ Safaricom Plc chief executive officer Peter Ndegwa said earlier this month.

‘For our Ethiopia business, the priority is addressing operational and financial challenges and also meeting our regulatory obligations while maintaining commercial momentum.’

Safaricom’s first corporate bond is expected to revitalise a debt segment, which has been in a lull for years as Treasury bonds dominate.

Only Sh25.9 billion worth of corporate bonds were outstanding at the NSE at the end of September, including notes by EABL, Family Bank, the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC), Linzi Finco Trust and Batian Income Properties.

The corporate debt segment has been dented by issuers who went belly up soon after issuing their notes, including Imperial Bank.

Micro-lender Real People, which has Sh1.63 billion in outstanding notes, also ran into financial headwinds soon after issuing its medium-term notes.

EABL has recently dipped back into the corporate debt segment, raising Sh16.7 billion to pay for other outstanding borrowings after making an early redemption of Sh11 billion notes last month.

The brewer’s bond was oversubscribed from its initial target of Sh11 billion, translating to a performance rate of 152.4 percent, with the paper being priced at 11.8 percent.

EABL is set to return to the market with a second tranche of the notes as it seeks to raise a total of Sh20 billion, indicating it would likely take Sh3.3 billion in the second issue.

Safaricom reported a 52.1 percent rise in its half-year profit to Sh42.7 billion, helped by a smaller loss in Ethiopia and M-Pesa’s double-digit growth.

Its net profit grew from Sh28.11 billion the previous year, and it expects to declare an interim dividend in February.

The Kenya business continued to be the main profit driver on the back of M-Pesa, the firm’s largest unit and on course to generate half of the telco’s revenues.

Its reported loss in Ethiopia dropped by 59 percent compared to the first half of the previous financial year, which was heavily impacted by a depreciation of the birr currency.

The loss in Ethiopia that is attributed to Safaricom dropped to Sh15.2 billion from Sh19.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, translating to a gain of Sh4.2 billion.

Safaricom launched in Ethiopia in 2022 as the Addis government opened up the tightly-controlled economy to foreign competition and is hoping its presence in Africa’s second most populous country will power future growth.

Its diversification from the saturated voice and SMS business is paying off, with M-Pesa, mobile data and fixed internet emerging as sales drivers.

Safaricom’s revenue rose to Sh199.9 billion in the six months to September, from Sh179.9 billion in the same period a year earlier, reflecting a 11.1 percent growth.

Revenue from mobile financial service M-Pesa rose to Sh88.1 billion from Sh77.2 billion previously, reflecting a growth of 14 percent.

The shilling is expected to weaken against the US dollar to about Sh134 next year on the back of increased imports and higher costs for servicing foreign public debt.

Seven global institutions tracking Kenya’s macroeconomic position such as Oxford Economics, Standard Chartered and Citigroup Global Markets see sustained calmness in the foreign exchange market for nearly one and a half years coming under threat in coming months due to mounting pressure on Kenya’s dollar reserves.

The Kenyan currency opened trading on Wednesday at 129.90 per dollar, according to official data from the Central Bank of Kenya, a 15-month low since it hovered around 130 units on August 6, 2024.

It has remained little changed for months at 129.24 units, drawing concerns from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF officials are reported to have termed the shilling too stable during their recent staff visit to Kenya, which concluded on October 10, suggesting an element of management of the market by the CBK, which has denied this view.

Forex traders have attributed the renewed pressure on the local unit in recent days largely to falling supply of dollars.

The shilling has been relatively stable since mid-2024, exchanging between 129 and 130 levels on increased dollar inflows from diaspora remittances, dollar-denominated borrowing, agricultural exports and return-chasing offshore investors.

The currency has averaged 129.30 this year, reportedly supported in part by the Central Bank’s crawling-peg strategy, which allows gradual, controlled adjustments in response to inflation and external sector conditions.

But global institutions expect this stability to soften going forward.

According to the December 2025 FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast, based on feedback from seven international firms, the shilling is likely to trade at 134 per dollar by end-2026, and slipping further to 138 by end-2027.

The analysts see persistent fiscal deficits due to revenue shortfalls, widening current account deficit and elevated external financing needs amid gradual erosion of purchasing power as the biggest drivers of projected gentle weakening in the next two years.

‘The shilling is expected to gradually weaken against the dollar through 2026 due to persistent fiscal and current account deficits and an uptick in inflation,’ analysts at FocusEconomics wrote in the outlook report. ‘A potential IMF deal reinforcing fiscal discipline is an appreciatory risk.’

A depreciating shilling means higher costs for imports such as industrial supplies into factories, fuel, and machinery and spare parts, while also pressuring foreign debt servicing costs projected at Sh586.46 billion this fiscal year ending June 2026.

Imports, for example, edged up 1.16 percent in first eight months of the year to Sh1.81 trillion, while exports dropped 2.20 percent to Sh745.20 billion, signaling more demand for dollars than supply.

Kenya’s fiscal deficit this fiscal year ending June 2026, on the other hand, is projected at Sh923.2 billion, or 4.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

An elevated fiscal pressure poses a risk to the continued stability of the shilling because the budget shortfall is bridged by increased domestic borrowing – effectively printing money- which result in devaluation of the currency when the increase in supply of local unit is not matched by demand.

UK-based Capital Economics projects the steepest depreciation among the forecasters surveyed in the report, seeing the shilling touching 140 levels in 2026.

Analysts at Oxford Economics expect the currency at 138 next year and 150 in 2027, while Standard Chartered places its forecast at 133 in 2026 and 139 the following year.

Fitch Ratings and Fitch Solutions are more moderate, seeing the shilling exchange at 131 next year, before weakening to 133-134 levels in 2027, while Citigroup Global Markets and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) forecast the local to sell at mid-130s levels across the two years.

These projections come on the back of the CBK maintaining that the shilling’s current stability reflects improved confidence in the economy and increased dollar inflows.

‘The Kenya shilling has remained stable, supported by diversified foreign exchange inflows from diaspora remittances, horticulture, tea exports and offshore banks as well as confidence in the economy, particularly with the recent upgrade of Kenya’s credit rating by S and P Global Ratings,’ CBK Governor Kamau Thugge said on October 8.

‘The expectation is that the stability will continue given momentum in the balance of payments and the narrowing of the current account deficit.’

Analysts have maintained the ‘crawling peg’ approach – which has allowed small, predictable adjustments in the exchange rate to align with economic fundamentals such as inflation and current account conditions – has helped anchor the shilling in a narrow trading band of between 129.22 and 129.24.

‘Since February 2024, the exchange rate has been remarkably steady at Sh129 to Sh130 per US dollar, with indications the Kenya shilling would have appreciated more were it not for the central bank’s proactive reserve accumulation strategy,’ analysts at global credit rating agency Moody’s wrote in a note on July 22.

‘Despite these positive developments, external debt service needs remain large, averaging about $3.5 billion annually in interest and principal payments. Meeting these obligations without eroding the central bank’s reserve buffer will require continued access to concessional and market-based external financing.’

Kenya’s textile industry has long stood as a symbol of both promise and neglect.

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Once employing nearly 30 percent of the manufacturing workforce and supporting over 200,000 cotton-farming households, the sector has since withered under decades of underinvestment, policy inconsistency, and the influx of second-hand imports.

What was once a proud pillar of industrial employment and export earnings has been reduced to a patchwork of struggling mills, idle ginneries, and farmers who abandoned cotton for survival crops.

A story of decline

The liberalisation wave of the early 1990s opened Kenya’s market to global competition, but without the infrastructure or capacity to withstand it. Textile mills, unable to compete with cheap imports, shut their doors.

By the early 2000s, most large-scale garment manufacturers had either collapsed or were operating at less than 10 percent capacity. The result was devastating.

Factories that once produced millions of metres of fabric became ghost facilities dependent on government bailouts rather than production.

Cotton production plummeted from historic highs to below 10,000 MT annually, dismantling a once-integrated ecosystem of farmers, ginners, and processors.

As mills fell silent, the collapse cascaded down the value chain, farmers lost markets, gins rusted away, and rural economies stagnated.

A window of opportunity

Three decades later, a window for renewal has opened. Kenya’s Cotton, Textile, and Apparel (CTA) Policy 2024 sets out a clear roadmap for revitalization, emphasizing value-chain integration, private-sector partnerships, and incentives for modernisation.

Kenya currently imports about $2.2 billion worth of textiles annually, a paradox for a cotton-producing country. Local mills meet less than 45 percent of domestic fabric demand, representing a massive import-substitution opportunity.

If the policy is executed with discipline and focus, even partial import replacement could save the country hundreds of millions in foreign exchange, while exports could triple to $2 billion by 2030, up from $628 million in 2024.

The multiplier effects are substantial. A thriving textile ecosystem can rejuvenate cotton farming across 24 counties, re-engage 200,000 farmers, and catalyse thousands of indirect jobs in logistics, transport, and retail. This is particularly crucial in a nation where 17.7 percent of the youth remain unemployed.

At a household level, a predictable cotton market revives rural incomes, while at a national scale, the textile revival strengthens Kenya’s manufacturing share of GDP, reduces trade deficits, and expands export diversification under trade frameworks like Agoa, AfCFTA, and EBA.

A global shift Kenya can seize

Global supply chains are undergoing realignment. Rising labour costs in Asia, sustainability pressures, and shifting trade dynamics are prompting major brands to diversify sourcing to Africa.

Studies by Gherzi indicate that over 50 percent of Africa’s apparel demand is currently met through imports, a market valued at $74 billion in 2024, and projected to grow to $93 billion by 2030.

Kenya currently enjoys a 10 percent tariff advantage into the US compared to Asian exporters such as Bangladesh or Vietnam, following the latest Trump tariff directives but also benefits from the one-year Agoa extension, a structural edge that, if coupled with vertically integrated capacity, grants Kenya the opportunity to position itself as East Africa’s textile and apparel hub.

The road ahead

If implemented with discipline, this initiative will not only re-industrialize Kenya’s textile sector but reposition the country as a continental model for sustainable industrialisation, combining agriculture, manufacturing, and exports in one circular ecosystem.

From Rivatex’s factory floors in Eldoret to new knitwear lines in Vipingo, the rebirth of Kenyan textiles is more than an industrial project; it is a social and economic renaissance. It represents a shift from dependency to productivity, from importing to exporting, and from unemployment to empowerment.

The targets of 22,000 jobs, $514 million in annual output, $470 million in investment, and $2 billion in exports by 2030 are both bold and achievable.

With government as the enabler, and private enterprise as the driver, the revival of Kenya’s textile industry is no longer a distant ambition. It is a transformation already in motion.

A silent revolution is reshaping the global economy, driven by talent, technology, and the relentless pursuit of competitive service delivery. As global enterprises diversify operations and seek new efficiency frontiers, Africa stands ready to reap the proceeds.

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Young, educated, and digitally connected, the continent is positioned to power the next wave of global services and innovation. Yet, the continent’s greatest opportunity remains its greatest gap; the need for world-class business ecosystems that allow global firms to set up, operate and scale with confidence.

A United Nations paper published in October 2024 estimates that Africa’s youth population, already the largest in the world, is projected to double to over 830 million by 2050. By the same year, the continent’s working-age population (15-64 years) will rise from 849 million in 2024 to 1.56 billion, accounting for 85 percent of the global workforce increase.

This will create an unmatched pool for technology, BPO, finance and professional services. One in four global workers will be African by 2035, shifting the centre of global talent.

Africa’s exports of services are growing faster than the global average, powered by digital infrastructure, trade integration, and expanding innovation hubs.

As a developing country and the sixth-largest economy on the continent, Kenya must be at the heart of this revolution. Nairobi must position itself as the gateway through which Africa’s services future is taking shape.

Without doubt, Kenya is where Africa’s service economy meets global scale. Strategically positioned, globally connected, and innovation-led, Kenya has become the continent’s hub for international services, investment, and talent.

With a vibrant private sector, policy stability, and world class digital infrastructure, Nairobi has evolved into a regional command centre for technology, finance, and professional services, where global companies establish operations, access skilled labour and serve international markets.

Over 400 regional and continental headquarters including the UN, Microsoft, Visa, IBM, and Teleperformance are located in Nairobi.

Services now account for over 50 percent of GDP and deliver Kenya’s only trade surplus, led by ICT, finance, and professional outsourcing.

The country is ranked top 3 innovation hub in Africa with more than 200 active tech and innovation centres and nearly 50 percent of East Africa’s tech Foreign Direct Investments (FDI).

The Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the Moi International Airport Mombasa link Africa, Europe, and Asia within a single workday. Kenya’s strategic time zone (GMT+3) enables seamless overlap with Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Strong governance and a progressive Special Economic Zones (SEZ) framework are big investor confidence boosters.

The smart money right now is betting that Africa’s next trillion-dollar growth frontier is not in goods, but in its in services.

Global demand for service delivery is rising sharply, and Africa is the next major frontier.

Driven by rising labour costs, talent shortages and supply-chain realignments, global firms are rethinking where they operate.

Multinationals are diversifying operations to cost-competitive, talent-rich, and stable hubs for service delivery. Africa is emerging as the next major services frontier.

The continent is beginning to capture a larger share of global outsourcing, technology, and professional-services investment. Kenya leads Africa’s service-export transformation. As a regional hub for innovation and corporate headquarters, it combines skilled talent, digital infrastructure, and policy stability, attracting global firms seeking scalable service operations.

Yet, setup remains complex and uncertain. Across Africa, companies struggle to find compliant facilities and predictable processes, slowing expansion and limiting the continent’s ability to convert opportunity into output. Global companies face the same obstacles; setting up operations is slow, complex, and uncertain.

So far, service SEZs have proven to provide the best chance for eliminating that barrier. They do so by offering Grade A workspace, clear regulation, world-class infrastructure, and a streamlined one-stop setup process, giving investors the speed, certainty, and compliance needed to start and scale. They enable service-oriented firms to launch or scale operations quickly and confidently.

By providing real estate, infrastructure, fiscal incentives, and enterprise enablement, global investors get quick access to regulatory licensing, skilled talent, advanced technology, operational certainty, and business enablement.

Beyond the tax and infrastructure incentives, SEZs also deliver high-level engagement with policymakers and global anchors, ensuring barriers are removed and growth is accelerated.

Investors don’t just find offices, they find acceleration, clarity, and confidence to grow globally from Kenya.

The government must be commended for creating a magnetic pull of tax advantaged-SEZs with the performance of private business accelerators, reducing friction, lowering cost, and amplifying productivity.

If Kenya is to generate tens of thousands of high-quality jobs for our youth, then it must tap into the expanding African footprint in global service delivery.

The UN paper titled Unlocking the potential of Africa’s youth posits that to fully harness their vast potential, aligning Africa’s economic strategies with the realities of its growing youth population is crucial.

Service SEZs have the capacity to catalyse Kenya’s next generation of skilled professionals, linking education, enterprise, and export-ready expertise.

Formal, high-income jobs feed directly into PAYE and income tax, while multinational tenants strengthen Kenya’s corporate tax base and boost foreign exchange earnings through export-led services.

On November 14 at COP30 in Belem, Brazil, an extraordinary moment unfolded that exposed the brutal contradictions of global climate politics.

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As delegates arrived for another day of glossy panels and diplomatic choreography, indigenous tribes of the Amazon blocked the main entrance to the conference venue.

This was not on the official agenda. Clad in traditional attire, bodies painted with ancestral symbols, carrying the spiritual weight of thousands of years of custodianship, they stood firmly and peacefully, forming a human barrier. Their message was clear: ‘Nothing about us, without us.’

What happened next revealed who truly bears the burden of the climate crisis and who pretends to solve it.

Corporate policymakers and government officials scrambled, bypassing the blocked entrance through exit doors, avoiding eye contact with the people whose lands they debate in panel rooms.

Brazilian military soldiers, UN security officers, armored trucks, and military patrols surrounded these peaceful protesters, as if the threat to COP was not the destruction of the Amazon, but the Indigenous communities defending it.

The people most affected by climate change, whose territories absorb carbon, shelter biodiversity, and stabilize global climate patterns, were met with rifles and shields.

Meanwhile, the biggest contributors to planetary destruction – those behind industrial agriculture, destructive mining, fossil fuels, and corporate land grabs – walked into air-conditioned halls to negotiate the future of those they left outside. That is the tragedy and hypocrisy of global climate politics.

For indigenous peoples, climate impacts are not theoretical. They are losing their land, forests, rivers, identity, and lives.

Their territories are invaded by loggers, ranchers, agribusiness giants, and multinational corporations, often backed by the very governments that claim climate leadership on global stages.

Indigenous peoples are not passive victims but frontline defenders. Their ecological knowledge, spiritual connection to land, and practices of living with nature offer some of the most grounded climate solutions humanity has ever known. Yet global systems continue to sideline, patronise, or militarise against them.

Read: COP30 must move beyond mere promises

The Amazon is home to more than 400 Indigenous groups who have lived in harmony with nature for millennia. Studies consistently show that Indigenous territories have the lowest deforestation rates, the richest biodiversity, and the most intact ecosystems.

These communities sequester carbon not through billion-dollar technological promises but through cultural memory, custodianship, and land practices that work with nature, not against it.

Despite their unparalleled success in conserving ecosystems, they remain the most threatened people in the Amazon, facing violent displacement, land grabbing, illegal mining, assassinations of community leaders, and cultural erasure.

While states and corporations debate and water down climate commitments, civil society organisations (CSOs) carry the weight of real climate action. Their work is often invisible and underfunded, but fundamental and far more transformative than annual negotiation cycles.

Across the Amazon and the Global South, CSOs defend Indigenous territories from land grabs, support community-led forest management, document human rights abuses, and link local struggles to global justice movements. They translate global rhetoric into local awareness and refuse to allow the climate struggle to be reduced to carbon markets and profit calculations.

While official COP30 negotiations unfold in restricted halls dominated by state interests and corporate lobbying, the People’s Summit, happening alongside COP30, offers something radically different: an open, accessible, community-led space where indigenous peoples are central leaders, not ‘invited participants’.

Here, discussions center on lived realities: the violence of extractivism, destruction of territories, criminalization of defenders, and alternatives rooted in Indigenous stewardship and grassroots organizing.

At the People’s Summit, not in official negotiating rooms, the most honest conversations about climate justice occur, unfiltered by diplomacy, acknowledging that the climate fight is a fight for land, rights, culture, autonomy, and life itself.

The blockade was not simply a protest but a moment of reckoning. It reminded the world that the people who protect forests do so without millions in climate funding, without badges, titles, or applause.

When they defend their lands, they face criminalization, militarization, and violence. Meanwhile, those responsible for environmental destruction continue shaping climate policy in heavily guarded rooms.

This contradiction is why COP30 needed disruption. The Amazon is speaking, and its people are demanding to be heard. The world can no longer pretend not to hear them.

This moment demands humility, honesty, and radical transformation. Global institutions must stop sidelining Indigenous peoples and recognize them as leaders of climate solutions. Civil society’s grassroots work must be elevated and respected. The world must finally confront the economic, political, and colonial systems that fuel the climate crisis.

If global climate summits are to mean anything, they must start by listening. The people standing outside COP30’s gates are not outsiders but guardians of the future we are all fighting for. The Amazon’s indigenous people are not at COP30. They are COP30.

The government has levied fresh import and export taxes on a Coast-grown cash crop used for food colouring and cosmetics production, in a development that signals rising State interest in the largely unregulated subsector.

Under the new Crops (Bixa) Regulations, 2025, exporters of processed bixa products will pay a levy equivalent to one percent of the consignment value while those shipping out raw bixa will pay three percent.

The regulations also impose a tax on importers at the rate of two percent of the customs value for any bixa or bixa product brought into the country.

The introduction of the levies marks the first structured tax framework for the crop, which for years has operated under loose regulatory supervision.

Bixa is a tropical shrub that’s disease, pest and nearly drought-resistant, actively grown across the coastal region in areas such as Kwale, Mswabweni, Lamu, Malindi and Kiunga.

Locally known as mrangi, the tree’s yields comprise bright red fruits that have numerous seeds which contain bixin, used for colouring cheese, fish, salad oil, margarine as well as in cosmetics such as lipsticks.

‘There shall be imposed a levy on exported and imported bixa and bixa products for purposes of development of the bixa subsector,’ reads the regulatory outline published by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe.

There are two bixa farming seasons in a year with a kilogramme of the yield going for between Sh50 and Sh70, earning a farmer about Sh150,000 for every tilled acre in a year.

Experts say the plant matures fully in about four to five years and has an economic life of 20 years, but could be harvested from about a year in the farm.

The crop was introduced to Kenya by the Japanese and Kenyan governments in the 1970s before its production died a slow death due to low market prices and little regulatory follow up by the State.

The bixa crop is one of the world’s most important natural colourant, making for about 70 percent of world’s natural dyes.

The National Land Commission (NLC) has ordered Kakuzi to surrender 3,250 acres of land to Murang’a County and its vulnerable residents, for which the agricultural firm says it will initiate a legal battle to quash the directive.

The land represents about a quarter of the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm’s total productive land size of 4,949 hectares (12,229 acres).

Kakuzi’s share price has shrugged off the risk of land surrender, following the company’s disclosure of the NLC order on Wednesday morning.

The stock was down 3.67 percent to Sh400 as of midday on small volumes of 215 shares. Most of the company’s shares are held by UK multinational Camellia Plc (50.7 percent) and businessman John Kibunga Kimani (33.35 percent).

Dr Kimani was raised in the agricultural firm’s estates and over the decades amassed the ownership that saw him become a director of the company in November 2020.

The balance of the shares is distributed among some 1,400 retail investors, with daily trading rarely exceeding 300 shares.

‘Kakuzi has invested heavily in its land holdings and is wholly reliant on the land to deliver shareholder and related stakeholder value. Any disruption to its key agricultural resources will result in a material negative impact on Kakuzi operations and earnings, which may lead to job losses,’ the company said in a statement.

‘Kakuzi is reviewing the recommendations and will use all legal means to preserve the rights of its shareholders.’

The company has planted macadamia on 1,410 hectares, avocado (1,117 hectares), trees (1,912 hectares) and tea (510 hectares), according to its latest annual report.

NLC investigation

Following a petition by Kenyans who alleged that they were dispossessed of their land during the colonial days, the NLC conducted a years-long investigation that culminated in orders requiring Kakuzi to surrender the land as a final settlement on any claims against the company.

The NLC directed Kakuzi to give up 3,200 acres to settle the most vulnerable members of the claimants.

The agency also ordered the company to surrender at least 50 acres to the County Government of Murang’a for public use.

The NLC also directed Kakuzi to address other land-related issues that have caused regular flare-ups in the community, such as a lack of access roads to communal facilities, including schools.

The national and the Murang’a county government are to coordinate the implementation of the NLC directives, including the issuance of titles and regularisation of settlement schemes within Kakuzi land.

For years, communities in Murang’a have accused Kakuzi of illegally acquiring thousands of acres of land during the colonial era.

A group of individuals asked the NLC to investigate historical land injustice regarding Kakuzi’s acquisition of its land holdings.

Although the dispute went to court, the NLC issued a series of general directives against the agricultural firm prior to the latest, more definitive orders.

‘Allotments and titles to be issued for public purpose only. All leases for land held by Kakuzi in Murang’a County should not be renewed until the historical land injustice claim is heard and determined. Any 999-year leases to convert to 99 years,’ NLC said earlier.

Landowner pressures

The parent firm, Camellia, has stated that the land claims have been refuted through the Kenyan legal system. Kakuzi is the latest major landowner to face pressure to cede part of its property, following the fruits processor Del Monte’s surrender of 1,312 acres to the Murang’a County Government and 697 acres to the Kiambu County Government.

Kakuzi’s sister company, Eastern Produce Kenya Limited, has also faced pressure to cede land from the local community in Nandi County, where it has a tea plantation.

Some of the community living around Kakuzi’s estates have been buying shares in the company in what has been seen as both an investment and establishment of a platform to potentially air their grievances at forums such as annual general meetings.

Through Kakuzi Neighbourhoods Development Foundation, they held a 2.52 percent stake as of December 2024. The stake has a current market value of Sh197.7 million.

Pressure to cede land has become one of the material risks for agricultural firms with significant land holdings in the fertile Rift Valley and Central Kenya regions.

The value of bond and equities holdings by pension funds rose by 33 percent or Sh398.1 billion in the year to June 2025, fuelled by capital gains and higher contributions by scheme members.

Latest data from the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) shows that the schemes’ bond holdings rose by Sh318.1 billion to Sh1.33 trillion, while equities investments were up by Sh80.2 billion to Sh255.2 billion.

Bonds and shares saw significant capital gains in the period, helping boost the value of portfolios even as the funds accessed higher inflows from members thanks to higher deductions towards the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

Bonds and listed shares account for 62.6 percent of pension funds’ Sh2.53 trillion total assets, with guaranteed funds the other major holding at 19.6 percent.

The total assets grew by 27.9 percent or Sh552 billion in the one-year period, having stood at Sh1.98 trillion in June 2024.

These major investment classes take up the bulk of new cash coming into the schemes, with the preference of bonds in particular being driven by a preference for low risk assets by the pension funds.

The RBA also attributed the growth in assets to a stable macroeconomic environment, pointing to a mix of a stable exchange rate, favourable interest rates, and mild inflationary pressure.

‘A significant boost came from the NSSF, where contributions rose sharply. This was a direct result of the third-year implementation of the NSSF Act, 2013, which saw the contribution limits increase: the lower limit went up to Sh8,000, and the upper limit to Sh72,000.’

‘Quoted equities saw a significant jump to Sh255.2 billion. This performance reflects a sustained market recovery and the positive impact of stable exchange rates.’

In the equities market, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) recorded a 41.3 percent or Sh706.4 billion increase in market capitalisation to Sh2.42 trillion in the year to June 2025, riding on higher share prices of key blue chips that also form the bulk of pension fund investments in the bourse.

Market capitalisation is the measure of investor wealth at the NSE, being the cumulative valuation of all the listed shares in the bourse.

The valuation currently stands at Sh2.97 trillion, following a continued appreciation in share prices in the second half of the year.

In the bonds segment, pension funds have enjoyed capital gains in the secondary market on papers with high coupons (interest rates), due to their prices going up in line with falling interest rates/yields in the economy.

There is an inverse relationship between bond prices and yields in the secondary market, where an increase in one results in a fall in the other.

When rates on new issuances in the market are going down, investors are reluctant to sell existing holdings (which pay higher interest) since they would earn less returns from new purchases in the market. They, therefore, demand a premium on price if they are to sell their bonds.

Infrastructure bonds that were issued in 2023 and 2024 at elevated rates of between 14.4 percent and 18.5 percent have been trading at a premium on face value, which translates to paper gains by investors when they are valuing their portfolios at present market prices.

The highest premium is on an 8.5-year infrastructure bond sold in sold in February 2024 at a coupon of 18.46 percent. The bond traded at Sh119.82 per bond unit of Sh100 face value, followed by a 6.5-year IFB sold in 2023 at a coupon of 17.93 percent, which is trading at Sh116.55 per unit in the secondary market.

There comes a point when the body stops negotiating. When the meetings, the adrenaline, the caffeine, the stoicism all fail to hide the truth. That’s when the soul steps in. Not with a shout, but with silence. It whispers: You cannot keep creating life while abandoning your own.

Last week, we spoke of burnout; that quiet rebellion of the body against a world that demands constant motion. But what happens after the collapse? After the public applause fades and the private exhaustion settles in? What happens when a founder finally faces the mirror and sees not a visionary, not a leader, not a fighter but a weary human in need of mercy?

This is where rest begins not as leisure, but as leadership. The soul demands what the body could not sustain: renewal, rhythm and realignment. Yet even here, the founder struggles. Rest feels unnatural in a world built on relentless productivity.

Stillness feels like failure. But recovery requires surrender. Healing begins the moment we stop trying to earn our worth.

The truth is, burnout doesn’t destroy ambition; it distills it. It strips away the noise until only meaning remains. The founder who rebuilds after collapse learns to lead differently slower, deeper, truer. They stop chasing validation and start cultivating vitality. They begin to understand that the most dangerous thing about exhaustion is not fatigue itself, but the illusion that it’s normal.

Across the continent, a quiet awakening is taking place. Founders are redefining success, choosing sanity over speed, longevity over limelight.

Some are restructuring their companies around balance. Others are integrating therapy, faith or silence into their routines. And some, after years of pushing, are simply learning to sleep again. Because sleep, for the exhausted soul, is not laziness but an act of resurrection.

Yet the hardest part of healing is unlearning. The founder’s identity is built on doing solving, fixing, moving. Rest requires listening, trusting, surrendering. That’s why the recovery journey is not a straight line. It moves in cycles: exhaustion, pause, reflection, renewal.

Each cycle brings new wisdom if we let it.

Emotionally, healing begins when founders reclaim their vulnerability. It’s saying, I am not okay, and realising that truth doesn’t make you weak, it makes you real. Socially, it’s rebuilding communities that allow honesty, not performance. The strongest founder is not the one who hides their wounds, but the one who leads with them.

Strategically, healing demands recalibration. You begin to prioritise sustainability over expansion, depth over scale. Decisions are made through clarity, not chaos. You stop reacting and start responding.

The company becomes quieter but stronger.

Spiritually, healing is a return to essence. You remember why you began. You realise your purpose was never profit; it was creation of value, of dignity, of legacy. And in mindset, healing is humility. It’s learning that stepping back is not stepping down; it’s making room for new strength to rise.

The rewired African Founders Operating System must now embrace this evolution, one that places restoration at the centre of leadership.

It must remind founders that no AI will fix emotional fatigue, no peer group will replace inner grounding, no distraction will restore peace.

Our new operating system must teach the art of stillness as strategy, empathy as structure and reflection as the highest form of intelligence. Because if the African founder is to build for decades, not seasons, their spirit must last longer than their startup.

We must create ecosystems that heal, as they grow mentorship circles that teach rest, investors who reward sustainability, boards that recognise human limits. Because a founder who is well builds differently.

And perhaps that is the next evolution of entrepreneurship on this continent, to build not just scalable companies, but sustainable souls.

To remember that no valuation is worth your sanity, and no legacy is worth your life.

There is an old myth in business that you must choose between greatness and grace. That you cannot lead fiercely and love gently at the same time. But the founders who survive the long road prove otherwise.

Their strength is not in their pace, but in their presence.

We are entering an age where leadership will not be measured by how much we build, but by how consciously we build it. Where balance will no longer be a buzzword, but a baseline. Where rest will be the new revolution.

Because when the soul demands rest, it’s not asking you to stop building, it’s asking you to start breathing again. It’s reminding you that your dream was never meant to cost your life. That legacy is not about immortality; it’s about integrity.

And when founders remember that, nations begin to heal too. The health of a nation is reflected in the peace of its entrepreneurs. And when its founders are whole again, Africa will rise not in noise, but in renewal.