Category: Business Daily

Mark Muiruri, popularly known as Mark Mansa because of his YouTube channel Mansa Plus, has toured some of the most expensive homes in Kenya. He doesn’t tour alone but with a camera crew that helps him put together a weekly show for his over 112,000 YouTube subscribers.

He has oohed and aahed over polished wooden floors, soaring ceilings, paneled walls, lush landscapes, private golf-padding section, koi ponds and infinity pools.

Mark, the 34-year-old marketing graduate from Kinangop, is not a wealthy buyer, but one of a handful of young people who, through their social media handles, are giving ordinary Kenyans detailed insights of homes previously accessed only by the wealthy.

Mansa means King in a West African dialect, and in the Kenyan market has also been taken up by Standard Investment Bank for their special fund Mansa X – but he tells me they are not associated in any way.

Videos by the enthusiast hiker and long-distance runner rake up thousands of views and inspire hundreds of comments, mostly in awe of the properties.

His most viewed episode is of a Sh47 million house in Kahawa Sukari, which has 707,000 views.

The most expensive house he has showcased is valued at Sh400 million ($3.1 million), and it has a viewership of 407,000. This is in a country with only 6,800 dollar millionaires, meaning the viewership isn’t from people with the ability to buy, but more for entertainment.

‘We do not have many Kenyans who can afford that property, but we do have many Kenyans who are aspirational. So they watch this from a point of view that I would love that someday. Whether it will be possible or not is a question that can be debated, but they look at it from a point of view that this is beautiful and I wish or hope that one day I can have such,’ says Mark.

He also notes that most people seek to get ideas on how to set up their own homes from the show, albeit on a lower budget.

But what benefit do developers get, if a majority of the viewers are not necessarily the buyers?

Mark reckons that YouTubers’ relationship with developers is symbiotic, even if the houses are widely viewed, creating fame for the content creator without effective demand.

‘Most developers actually don’t have marketing budgets. So, for you to sell products valued Sh100 million or Sh20 million, you must have a marketing budget. So, we come and fill that gap. In that regard, I don’t feel that we owe developers,’ he says.

For developers, the placing of the property on YouTube and other social platforms widens the net for potential buyers, especially those in the diaspora.

‘It actually helps to gain traction because while one will imagine a buyer of property costing more than Sh100 million does not have time to actually view YouTube and make a decision, most of those people they use as agents view YouTube. Now, these agents are the ones that are sometimes targeted to view the property and then repackage it to the buyer depending on whether they are buying it to live in or as an investment,’ says Johnson Ndenge, a real estate consultant.

Other renowned real estate YouTubers in the country include Fine Urban Real Estate, African Real Estate, and Martin Properties.

Fine Urban Construction and Interiors, which collaborates with Ugandan socialite Zari Hassan to feature ultra-luxurious mega mansions, enjoys the largest following with 153,000 subscribers.

Does home content creation pay well?

Mark says earnings from YouTube are not attractive, especially in Kenya, even for those with a huge following. This has seen Mansa Plus evolve to a realtor, selling houses that they feature for a commission.

‘The payment per view is very little for the African market because they base it on the advertisements done on YouTube. YouTube argues advertisements in Africa are not that highly paid for like in Europe or the US,’ he says.

‘As African content creators, we don’t make much from (subscriptions), but it’s enough to keep the business running. The operations cover the small expenses, but the majority of the money will come from working with brands in real estate and selling the houses,’ he adds.

How he started

Though the fame and glam that comes with being a content creator, Mark reckons it is not an easy path to walk. He started five years ago with his first video attracting 56 views, which were largely from family and friends.

He has faced rejection from developers and low confidence because of his heavy accent, but he persisted because he had a genuine passion.

Chinese developers were the first to open their projects to him and even made a suggestion to pay a commission for the content and more in case of a sale arising from the video.

‘The Chinese are really welcoming. We didn’t even know that guys get paid commission for selling – they are the ones who told us. And because we were afraid to lose the opportunity of showcasing, we declined,’ he says.

Over time, however, he realised the need to form a realtor through which he sells the houses to those who reach out to the company, based on the contacts he shares on the videos.

Developers are now willing to pay facilitation fees, which cater for the production of the weekly videos. He says that he does background checks on the developers to ensure he works with those who deliver their projects.

He has invested in production equipment over time, well north of Sh2 million, a contrast to his first videos, which were shot using a mobile phone by an amateur.

Bar owners want Parliament to stop the ongoing public participation exercise on the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Bill, 2024, and expand it beyond Nairobi, even as they oppose several provisions they say could raise the cost of business and fuel illicit trade.

The Pubs, Entertainment and Restaurants Association of Kenya (Perak), a lobby, said the Departmental Committee on Health is conducting a targeted and limited public participation exercise that excludes many businesses and Kenyans who would be affected by the proposed law.

‘A public participation exercise limited to Nairobi and to a select few cannot be said to have accorded the people of Kenya a reasonable opportunity to be heard,’ Perak said in a petition to the committee.

The proposed law would introduce several new restrictions, including mandatory licensing by county governments for dealers in tobacco and nicotine products.

Perak said the requirement would create a duplicate layer of regulation for businesses already subject to national licensing requirements, increasing compliance costs and administrative bottlenecks.

It also opposed a proposed 100-metre restriction on the sale of tobacco products, saying it would be impractical in densely populated urban and mixed-use areas.

‘It would render lawful businesses unable to trade, with no clear justification or transitional relief, and would push consumers toward unregulated and illicit sellers,’ the association said.

Perak further objected to proposed plain packaging requirements and a ban on flavours, arguing that the measures could make it harder for consumers and traders to distinguish genuine, duty-paid products from counterfeit and illicit ones.

The concerns echo those raised by manufacturers and other business groups over the Bill.

The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) warned that mandatory county licensing would duplicate existing regulatory requirements and increase the cost of doing business while creating opportunities for illicit trade.

‘Layering multiple licensing requirements at both national and county levels is likely to result in inconsistent enforcement, regulatory uncertainty and barriers to formal trade,’ KAM said in its submission to Parliament.

The Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry has similarly warned that parallel approval regimes could increase compliance costs and fragment enforcement.

The dispute also highlights the wider problem of overlapping regulatory mandates between national and county governments.

The Constitution assigns counties responsibility for trade development and regulation, including trade licences, while the national government retains responsibility for health policy.

Kenya has just done something few countries get the chance to do. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, 2026 creates an institution with the potential to change how this country relates to its natural resource wealth for generations to come, converting what is dug from the ground today into an asset still serving Kenyans 100 years from now. That is worth taking seriously, and right.

In 2016, while undertaking postgraduate study at the University of Nairobi, I researched this question because it seemed one of the most consequential a country in Kenya’s position could face. Kenya’s fund existed only as a proposal then.

The research compared it against five countries that had already built such funds, and against the international governance standard known as the Santiago Principles, to understand what tends to make these institutions succeed or fail.

A decade later, with the law, it seems worth returning to that comparison – not to keep score, but because the questions it raised are exactly the ones Kenya now has to answer in practice.

The Act gets a great deal right. It keeps the fund’s three purposes – cushioning shocks, financing infrastructure, and saving for future generations – legally distinct rather than blended into one account, since a shilling meant to survive 40 years cannot be managed the same way as one meant to be spent this year.

It gives the future generations, or Urithi, component real protection: it cannot be borrowed against. It routes all revenue through a central bank account before allocation, giving the institution best equipped to understand macroeconomic risk a genuine role from the outset.

And it ties infrastructure spending to the national development plan in language built to outlast any single blueprint – sensible, given how close Vision 2030 is to its own horizon.

Measured against the questions that research set out a decade ago, the Act gets well over 90 percent of the foundational architecture right. Two things are still worth Kenyans watching closely as implementation begins – not because they overshadow what has been achieved, but because they matter precisely when everything else has been done well.

The first is the Senate’s absence. Kenya is a devolved country, and the 47 county governments the Senate represents have a direct stake in how national resource wealth is managed. Nothing in the Act gives the Senate a formal role in the Fund’s oversight – not a small gap given devolution is a defining constitutional commitment.

The funds that endure tend to be the ones whose governance mirrors the country’s political architecture: Norway’s fund answers closely to a Parliament with strong constitutional authority, and Chile built specific safeguards into its fund to keep it stable through changes of government. A fund designed as though devolution does not exist is designed against the grain of Kenya’s own Constitution.

The second is public participation. The Constitution treats this as a right, not a courtesy, and the international governance standard treats it as a core test of legitimacy.

The Act gives Parliament and the Auditor-General real oversight tools – quarterly reporting, audited statements, election-period safeguards – but no way for ordinary Kenyans, not just auditors and legislators, to follow where this wealth goes directly.

Singapore is a useful reference point, not for its returns but its habits of disclosure: its fund answers to parliament through regular public scrutiny, and engages citizens directly through open, modern communication rather than formal reporting alone. Kenya has no equivalent citizen-facing channel yet, and building one would cost little against what it would add to public trust.

A law that gets this much of a foundational question right, and leaves only a few genuinely important aspects still to be settled, is no mean achievement – it is a serious, largely well-built piece of legislation. But Kenya did not create this fund to produce a well-drafted Act.

It created it to build something still serving Kenyans, honestly and effectively, long after everyone reading this has left public life. That is the standard worth holding it to as implementation begins.

Martin Tetu has rarely stayed in one place for long. After finishing Form Four in Mpeketoni, Lamu County, he joined the National Youth Service (NYS) in 2010 and stayed for two years. He later moved through trucking, construction and port jobs, always looking for better opportunities.

‘I am one person that doesn’t settle for less,’ he says. ‘If I feel that I’m not getting what I want, I will quit.’

In 2022, he tried his luck in Saudi Arabia, joining a wave of Kenyan drivers recruited by a Hungarian company. He eventually made his way to Riyadh after paying Sh60,000 in commission fees.

He worked as a construction driver, then a bulk sugar driver, then a petroleum tanker driver. Seven months later, he came back home, worn out by a system he says treated drivers like prisoners rather than professionals.

‘Being a truck driver in Saudi Arabia is like modern slavery,’ he says. ‘Some days, you end up losing part of your salary to penalties.’

In Kenya, a friend who runs the Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers Union in Mombasa connected him to a Romanian company recruiting drivers. Martin paid Sh120,000 in agent fees, his visa, and medical checkup. He landed in Romania in June 2024 and has been there since.

Romania’s working conditions are fairer, he says.

A new driver in the industry, he explains, earns a minimum daily allowance of about Sh11,900. In the general cargo category where he now works, that figure rises to about Sh14,900 a day, what he calls his daily mileage allowance, on top of his Sh465,000 basic pay.

‘You rest a minimum of 24 hours after every week of driving,’ he says. Under the European Union law, he drives no more than nine hours a day, with mandatory rest after every four and a half hours.

However, better pay aside, life on the road has its frustrations. He says many long-distance drivers in Romania struggle with routes that demand tight manoeuvring along the narrow turns. European winter is also a test, challenging him in ways nothing in Kenya had.

‘It gets to minus 15 degrees Celsius,’ he says. ‘The first time I wore leggings, sweaters, a vest, a long T-shirt, a jacket, but it was still cold.’

Being away from his children is the hardest part of working as a truck driver in Romania, especially when he watches his daughter cry at the airport each time he leaves.

Away from the road, Martin spends his free time exploring new places, visiting football stadiums, walking through historical sites and sharing his experiences on social media, which has also become a modest source of income.

‘I need to raise my children in a better environment than the one that I was raised in,’ he says, explaining what keeps him going. He still remembers his very first salary, back in 2010, and the promise he made that day.

‘I was given Sh10,000, and I promised myself that I would never get employed for a lesser salary,’ he says. ‘Thank God, I have never been in a job that is taking me backwards financially.’

Flexibility to study

Martin did not make the move alone. He took his childhood friend, Joshua Komu Njuguna, too. Joshua was a site engineer at the Lamu port then joined the Lamu County Government in 2022 as an assistant engineer. But the pay left him disappointed.

‘One night in August, Martin called me at 2am with news of a job opportunity in Romania,’ he says.

He was not fully convinced at first, but started the paperwork a month later. His work permit came through in about a month and a half, without using an agent, after Martin connected him directly with the employer. After another month, he received his visa.

‘I paid around Sh460,000 for the entire process including visa fees, cost of flights and travel medical insurance,’ he says.

He left Kenya in December 2024 and landed in the middle of a harsh Romanian winter, a shock to a man who grew up in Lamu’s heat. ‘It was a terrible experience, especially since I came in December,’ says the 33-year-old.

He started as a motorbike delivery rider, a job that gave him the flexibility to study without being tied to a fixed schedule. ‘In a good month, I could earn up to Sh150,000.’

This was significantly more than he had earned as a government engineer, despite having a diploma and years of experience on construction sites.

With the income, he began converting his Kenyan driving licence to a Romanian one. He then worked his way through Class C, Class CE and the professional CPC course required for truck drivers in Europe.

The training was not cheap. “I spent about Sh400,000 on training for all my driving licences,’ he says.

The language barrier made the theory exams even harder, as he had to take them in English, while the practical tests were conducted differently.

Now driving a refrigerated truck carrying temperature-controlled cargo, he is in his third week of driving solo after five weeks of training with a colleague. ‘I earn between Sh5,000 and Sh13,000 a day,’ Joshua says.

Like most truckers in Europe, he sleeps in the cabin and cooks his own meals on the road.

From matatu to six-figure earner

Patrick Majani, another Kenyan trucker, found a route into Germany trucking industry after working as a warehouse operator and assistant coordinator for an American company.

Before he travelled to Germany, he worked as a matatu conductor on the Kakamega-Nairobi route. It was there that he met the woman who would become his wife; a Kenyan woman already living in Germany. Their relationship led to marriage under Kenyan law, and Patrick had to prove himself through Germany’s strict immigration process.

He studied German in Mombasa and travelled to Nairobi to sit his exam at the Goethe Institute in 2008, needing a minimum score of 61 percent to pass. He landed in Munich on the first of May 2009, arriving on a family visa.

‘I was hit by culture shock,’ the 42-year-old says, remembering his first night, when the sun stayed up past 10pm.

He spent his first year in a German language school before enrolling in logistics classes in 2010 at a government institution. After finishing, he was hired almost immediately as a warehouse operator for an American electronics company.

Within a year, he was promoted to assistant coordinator, a role he held for four years before becoming a full coordinator, a position he kept until he had worked at the company for 10 years in total.

Because he was the only English speaker among mostly older German colleagues, he became the translator during video conferences with the company’s American partners.

Despite the responsibility, his pay stayed low. He asked for a raise, received only a small increase, and after another year of rising workload with no further salary change, he decided to leave. By then he had earned permanent residency after three years of paying German taxes.

A government employment office asked what career he wanted next, and he told them trucking. They handed him a voucher worth roughly Sh1.5 million to fund his commercial driving course.

‘I began classes in 2021 and spent about six months training before sitting for an exam in German in early 2022, scoring 96 percent,’ Patrick says.

He started driving in March 2022, before his physical licence even arrived, working off interim paperwork.

After four months with a small Turkish-owned company run by a former neighbour, Patrick moved to a family-owned company where he still works. The company now operates a fleet of about 100 trucks and is run by the widow of one of its two founding brothers.

He is paid hourly, earning Sh3,400 an hour, far more than he made in the office. German law caps his driving at nine hours a day, extendable to 10 twice a week, with mandatory rest breaks after every four and a half hours.

When not on the road, Patrick keeps his evenings simple; cooking and watching television before resting for the next trip. ‘I come home, I relax, wait for another 11 hours before starting the next trip.’

He counts his move to his current company among the best decisions since it lets him sleep in his own bed most nights instead of living inside a truck cabin. ‘Where I am now I’m satisfied,’ he says.

In the past three months alone, Patrick says, he has taken home a net pay of Sh600,000.

Katuosis with his 18-wheeler

Across the Atlantic, another Kenyan driver had to fight for something Patrick never had to prove; the simple belief that his body would not stop him from doing the job at all.

Joachim Mwangi once drove a donkey cart through a pineapple village because nobody would give him a chance behind anything bigger, and today he sits inside one of the largest trucks on American roads.

Known online as Katuosis, the 38-year-old lives in Ohio, US where he now drives an 18-wheeler. He lives with a condition called pituitary dwarfism, standing four feet two inches tall. He is a father of two; a daughter and a six-month-old son, and he speaks about both of them with unmistakable warmth.

As a teenager, with no money for college, Joachim bought a donkey from his savings and had his uncle design a cart, using it to transport goods and passengers around his village.

‘Villagers nicknamed me Mwangi Wapunda. I did that work for four years before an uncle discovered my talent for acting and brought me to Nairobi, where I appeared on Kenyan TV shows including Inspector Mwala and later a regular programme on K24,’ he tells BDLife.

In 2010 he became chairman of the Short Stature Society of Kenya, helping members find jobs and school fees while also acting, work that gave him purpose even as money stayed thin.

‘In 2017, I was invited to the Little People of America conference in Denver, Colorado, travelling with support from Kenya’s National Council for Persons with Disabilities. I came back home and in February 2018 I left Kenya for good. I lived with a friend named Melky for a year, in Louisiana, unable to work without a permit. Peggy O’Neill, a friend I met from the conference, paid for my flight and sent me money every month to survive, some of which I sent home to my mother, who was raising my daughter,’ he says.

He eventually moved to Ohio, where he married and took his first American job washing dishes at McDonald’s for about five months. He learned to drive a car, earning his licence in 2019, and began doing food delivery and Uber trips using his wife’s car.

A friend known as General Njuguna, a truck driver of 20 years, introduced him to the industry, showing him a truck so long that Joachim admits he was overwhelmed just looking at it.

‘I believe there’s nothing impossible,’ Joachim says, recalling his first look inside a 70-foot truck. No human is limited.’

The process to earn a commercial driving licence was long and stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. He restarted it properly in 2022, enrolling at Eastern Gateway Community College with funding from Ohio’s office for people with disabilities.

Because of his height, he needed extended pedals fitted into the truck, the same accommodation he uses to this day. He passed his exams and started driving in July 2022, four years after his first American job, a milestone he still describes as one of the proudest moments of his life.

Trucking in the US comes with its own strict rules. Drivers are limited to 70 hours over a rolling week, with a 14-hour working window each day and no more than 11 hours of actual driving, broken up by mandatory rest after the first eight hours.

‘No matter what you do, how you are working, your pickup, delivery or appointment, you have a clock that is governing you,’ he says.

His pay has grown with experience. His first employer paid him 58 cents a mile, and driving around 2,500 miles a week earned him close to Sh155,000 weekly. Today, he is in a lease purchase arrangement, having put down Sh1.8 million for a truck on a three-year contract, paying Sh323,000 a month while earning 80 percent of each load’s value.

Life on the road alone is not easy, and Joachim admits family time is often the price he pays for the miles he covers, along with a diet that leans too heavily on fast food.

Immigration policy has also touched drivers around him, with some losing their jobs after new rules targeted truckers without a green card or citizenship, something Joachim has watched happen to people he trained alongside. When he does get free time, he uses it to explore.

‘I’m that guy who likes travelling, I’m that guy who likes capturing new things,’ he says, describing how he takes trains to new towns, visits football stadiums and tours historical sites before heading back to his truck in the evening.

‘Being among the 10 is a huge achievement,’ he says, referring to the small number of little people driving trucks across America. ‘I don’t have a European passport, so when you go to the airport, you feel like you are obligated to go and get served.’

A parliamentary committee has proposed a reduction of the fuel pricing components subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) in a bid to help lower pump prices, especially whenever global costs of refined fuel skyrocket.

The Senate committee on energy says VAT should only be charged on landed costs to help reduce pump prices.

The landed cost is the total all-in expense of purchasing crude oil or refined fuel products and delivering them to a primary local storage depot or port. It is used as the baseline figure by regulators and oil companies to determine wholesale and retail pump prices.

Currently, VAT is charged on the total sum of the landed costs and margins and distribution costs for oil marketers. VAT is also charged alongside other eight distinct taxes per every litre of diesel, petrol and kerosene, triggering steep prices especially when global fuel prices rally.

‘Strategic recommendations for Kenya: amending the VAT Act so that the eight percent is charged only on the landed costs, excluding State levies from the taxable base would help lower pump prices immediately while still protecting revenue flows to key infrastructure funds,’ the committee says in the report tabled before the House last month.

Slapping VAT at the rate of eight percent on the total sum of the landed costs, margins and distribution costs for oil marketers and eight taxes has created a ‘tax on tax’ scenario in Kenya, with consumers bearing the brunt of the heavy levy.

For example, in the current pump prices, VAT on a litre of diesel and petrol accounts for Sh16.14 and Sh15.86 respectively. This could potentially drop if the State excludes the eight taxes from the VAT charge.

Pump prices surged to a historic high of Sh242.92 and Sh214.25 per litre of diesel and petrol respectively in May this year, as Kenya reeled from the global market shocks of the Middle East conflict that started in February.

Prices have since marginally eased to Sh217.86 and Sh214.03 per litre of diesel and petrol, respectively, in Nairobi currently, but could be lower if the State reduced the taxation rate.

Besides the eight percent VAT, Kenya also charges Sh25 as Roads Maintenance Levy on every litre of diesel and petrol and a Petroleum Development Levy (PDL) at the rate of Sh5.40 per litre of the two fuels.

Petrol and diesel also attract excise duty, Petroleum Regulatory Levy, Railway Development Levy, Merchant Shipping Levy, Import Declaration Fee, and anti-adulteration levy, which is charged on a litre of kerosene at the rate of Sh18.

But the committee’s recommendation, if adopted, could hit the Sh94 billion that the Treasury projects it will collect as VAT from fuel in the year ending June 2027.

The State has in the past been reluctant to lower taxation on fuel and instead opted to subsidise consumers to cushion them in the face of global price shocks.

The current eight percent VAT will lapse on October 14, potentially setting the stage for a return to the higher rate of 16 percent.

Kenya halved VAT on fuel from 16 percent on April 17 in response to the skyrocketing global fuel prices in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran. The lower rate was to last for 90 days but was extended by three months to October 14.

In 2021, Parliament rejected a recommendation by its Finance Committee to halve VAT on fuel from the then eight percent and also lower PDL to Sh2.50 from Sh5.40.

Heavy taxation has for years been cited as a major driver of costly fuel in Kenya, with the country being home to one of the highest taxation regimes on refined fuel.

KCB Bank has been allowed to place apartment blocks owned by Northcote Business Centre under administration to recover defaulted $16 million (Sh2 billion) loans.

Northcote borrowed the sums from National Bank of Kenya and are part of the loan portfolio that KCB inherited after acquiring National Bank in October, 2019.

KCB appointed an administrator on December 4, 2025 who took possession of the apartments on December 16, 2025.

In court papers, KCB said it placed Northcote under administration after establishing that the real estate firm violated an agreement to deposit rent and sale proceeds in an escrow account held by the two parties.

Instead, KCB held in court that Northcote diverted sales and rent proceeds for several units to an account the real estate firm operates at Absa Bank.

Northcote insisted that the rental and sales proceeds were all channeled to construction and ‘project-related obligations which benefited the lender’. In court, Northcote did not deny defaulting on the loan.

KCB filed an insolvency petition seeking to enforce its right to appoint an administrator as per the loan agreements with Northcote. The real estate firm then filed applications seeking to block KCB’s appointment of an administrator.

The High Court has now ruled that KCB acted within its rights as a lender, and that it would be risky to block the administration and return control of the apartment blocks to the same directors and management who triggered the lender’s takeover of the Kilimani property.

‘The balance of convenience also favours preserving the statutory administration process rather than returning control to the very management whose conduct gave rise to the lender’s decision to invoke its security rights. The Applicants (Northcote Business Centre Ltd) have therefore failed to satisfy the requirements for the grant of an injunction,’ the High Court ruled.

KCB’s lawyer told the court that Northcote had defaulted on the loan several times.

The bank added that Northcote had an existing overdraft of $3.314 million (Sh427 million) in its National Bank of Kenya account at the time KCB came into the picture.

On July 25, 2022, the two parties signed a deed of assignment, in which it was agreed that the rental and sales proceeds would be deposited in an escrow account in the joint names of KCB and Northcote.

At the same time in 2025, Northcote provided KCB with an all-assets debenture, meaning that substantially all present and future assets of the real estate firm are security for the Sh2 billion loans.

The escrow account was intended to facilitate a revenue-sharing formula which would allow KCB to recover the loan, but leave Northcote with enough funds to ensure business continuity.

Northcote in its court papers argued that it had deposited all rental and sales proceeds in the escrow account, and claimed that since the appointment of the administrator, sales and tenant occupancy have slowed down.

The real estate firm had claimed that it had suffered irreparable loss since the appointment of the administrator.

But the court held that the Sh2 billion debt is undisputed, and that the losses Northcote had listed can be calculated; hence, the real estate firm can be compensated through a financial award in the event it is determined that KCB is at fault.

Northcote claimed that it sought clarification on its obligations after KCB acquired National Bank of Kenya, and that it did not receive any response other than the appointment of an administrator.

The real estate firm argued that KCB could not rely on assets charged to National Bank of Kenya, including the apartments, to recover the loans.

But the court agreed with KCB that the lender acquired all assets and liabilities of National Bank of Kenya. That, the court held, meant that KCB also acquired the rights and obligations previously held by National Bank of Kenya.

The court dismissed Northcote’s argument that it is not insolvent, hence should not be placed under administration. The court held that administration exists to avoid total collapse, for the sake of stakeholders, in the event that a firm is under great financial distress.

‘While there is evidence that the company continued to own valuable assets and derive rental income, insolvency for purposes of administration is not confined to complete cessation of business operations or total financial collapse. The administration regime exists precisely to address situations where a company is experiencing financial distress while efforts are made to preserve value for creditors and stakeholders,’ the court ruled.

South Africa’s Absa Group has failed in the bid to increase its stake in Absa Bank Kenya to as much as 85 percent through a tender offer worth about $238 million (Sh30.8 billion).

The group says it bought 189.38 million shares from the bank’s minority shareholders from the 895.9 million the multinational lender had offered to purchase, representing a 21.1 percent subscription.

Absa, which held around 68.5 percent of Absa Bank Kenya, offered Sh34.50 per share to buy stocks from minority investors.

The transaction was expected to lift its stake by up to 16.5 percent, but it only managed to increase the ownership by 3.49 percent.

The share price surged at the Nairobi bourse in the wake of the deal announcement, narrowing the premium that Absa had offered in the tender.

Absa stock opened trading at Sh29.20 at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on June 19, the day its parent firm announced the tender offer, which closed on August 11.

The share stood at Sh33.65 on August 11.

‘Following completion of the settlement process and transfer of ordinary shares accepted under the tender offer, Absa Group will hold 3, 910, 196, 644 ordinary shares, representing approximately 71.99 percent of issued ordinary share capital of Absa Kenya,’ Absa Group will inform investors in a Wednesday notice.

South African banks have been stepping up acquisitions in East Africa, filling a vacuum left by retreating European banks ?and riding a wave of increased continental trade and investments into energy and infrastructure.

“Kenya is a strategically important market for Absa Group and remains central to our East Africa growth ambitions,” Charles Russon, group executive Africa ?regions, said while announcing the offer.

He added the proposal reflected confidence in the bank’s leadership, strategy and long-term growth prospects, as well as Absa’s commitment to supporting Kenya’s economy.

Absa, South Africa’s third-biggest lender by assets, said it intends to maintain Absa Bank Kenya’s listing on ?the NSE after the transaction.

The group added it does not plan to alter the bank’s business strategy, management team, staffing levels or day-to-day operations.

Absa’s Africa Regions ?business contributed 31 percent to group headline earnings in 2025.

That same year, Kenya contributed about 19 percent of the profits in the Africa regions portfolio.

The banks Tuesday more than doubled its interim dividend to Sh0.50 per share despite reporting a 9.8 percent decline in net profit for the half year ended June 2026.

The lender reported a net profit of Sh10.5 billion in the half year to June, down from Sh11.6 billion posted in a similar period last year.

The lender’s management attributed the profit drop to a lower interest rate regime, one-off costs and a slump in forex earnings.

Absa Group will earn Sh1.95 billion from the interim dividend for 71.99 percent stake.

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is expected to start a crackdown on housing levy defaulters after the tax agency got legal powers to recover arrears and punish those in breach.

The powers follow amendments contained in the Finance Act, 2026, giving the KRA teeth to recover outstanding unpaid fees, levies and charges collected on behalf of government.

The Affordable Housing Fund has collected more than Sh200 billion since the levy was introduced, but estimates that more than Sh100 billion has either remained unpaid or been evaded.

Here is what the new enforcement regime means for workers, employers, informal-sector workers and other levy payers.

Who is required to pay the housing levy and how much?

The Affordable Housing Act, 2024 requires employers to deduct 1.5 percent of an employee’s gross monthly pay and remit it to the Affordable Housing Fund.

Employers must make a matching contribution of another 1.5 percent, bringing the total contribution to three percent of gross monthly earnings.

The law also covers people outside formal employment, including informal-sector workers, traders and other self-employed Kenyans who pay 1.5 percent of gross income.

For workers and traders, the levy applies to a single income, meaning additional earnings from side hustles are not separately subjected to the housing levy.

Why was the housing levy changed after its introduction?

The original levy, introduced in July 2023, applied only to workers in formal employment.

That arrangement triggered legal challenges, with critics arguing that requiring only formally employed workers to contribute amounted to unequal treatment.

The Court of Appeal subsequently suspended the levy for two months, disrupting collections during its first year.

Parliament responded by passing the Affordable Housing Act, 2024, which broadened the contribution base to include informal-sector workers.

Collections resumed in March 2024 under the new framework, intended to address the discrimination concerns while creating a broader funding base for President William Ruto’s affordable housing programme.

What was wrong with the previous enforcement system?

KRA collects the housing levy on behalf of the government, with the money going into the Affordable Housing Fund.

The problem was that KRA’s responsibility to collect the levy was not matched by equally clear powers to recover unpaid amounts using the enforcement machinery available for ordinary tax debts.

Before July 2026, KRA could collect the levy but lacked explicit authority under the Tax Procedures Act to recover unpaid housing levy as though it were an ordinary tax liability.

What changed on July 1, 2026?

The Finance Act, 2026 amended the Tax Procedures Act by introducing Section 39B, giving the KRA Commissioner-General power to recover unpaid fees, levies and charges collected on behalf of Government as though they were unpaid tax.

In practical terms, KRA can now use the recovery machinery contained in the Tax Procedures Act to pursue outstanding housing levy.

Housing Principal Secretary Charles Hinga said KRA had sought clear legal authority before taking stronger action against defaulters.

‘KRA said they needed explicit powers to recover unremitted or unpaid amounts,’ Mr Hinga said, adding that the authority could now ‘assess, evaluate and prosecute’ taxpayers who had failed to remit the levy using own internal processes.

What can KRA now do to a defaulter?

The new law gives KRA several tools to recover unpaid housing levy.

First, it can require a third party holding money for a taxpayer, such as a bank, mobile money platform like M-Pesa or tenant, to pay that money directly to KRA.

For example, if a company owes housing levy and has money in a bank account, KRA can issue the relevant notice requiring funds to be diverted towards the outstanding liability.

Second, KRA can order the seizure of movable property belonging to a defaulter.

This could include vehicles, office equipment or stock-in-trade.

If the debt remains unpaid after the required notice period, the property can be sold to recover the amount.

Third, the authority can issue instructions to freeze or safeguard transaction accounts and financial flows where necessary to prevent a taxpayer from moving or dissipating assets before recovery.

Fourth, KRA can place a charge or security notation on land or other immovable property belonging to a defaulter.

These powers give KRA more leverage than simply demanding payment or beginning conventional civil recovery proceedings.

Does KRA have to go to court before recovering the money?

Not in every case. The Tax Procedures Act allows summary recovery of amounts not exceeding Sh100,000, enabling KRA to use a faster process rather than pursuing lengthy and expensive court proceedings.

For larger amounts, however, KRA must still follow the applicable procedures and legal safeguards under the Tax Procedures Act.

The significance of the new provision is, therefore, not that KRA can ignore due process, but that it now has explicit legal authority to use established enforcement mechanisms against unpaid levies.

How will KRA identify employers who have not paid?

KRA is expected to begin by reconciling its records to identify outstanding liabilities.

This could expose cases where employers deducted the employee’s 1.5 percent contribution but failed to remit it, as well as situations where employers failed to make their own matching contribution.

The Fund’s concern is that the amount collected does not necessarily represent the full amount that should have reached the Affordable Housing Fund.

The new enforcement powers are therefore aimed partly at closing the gap between what should have been collected and what was actually remitted.

Has KRA been given a bigger incentive to collect?

Yes. The Finance Act, 2026 increased the potential allocation to KRA from money collected through the Affordable Housing Fund.

Previously, KRA could receive up to 0.5 percent of collections.

The law now allows an allocation of up to two percent, subject to approval by the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary on the recommendation of the relevant Cabinet Secretary for Ministry of Lands, Public Works, Housing, and Urban Development.

The higher ceiling is intended to support KRA’s expanded role and provide an incentive for more effective collection and recovery.

The combination of stronger legal powers and a potentially larger allocation, therefore, gives KRA a greater incentive to pursue outstanding housing levy.

What does the new regime mean for employers and workers?

For employers, the biggest change is the risk of direct recovery action if they fail to remit the levy.

KRA can now deploy mechanisms that can reach bank accounts, movable assets and property, depending on the circumstances and amount owed.

For workers, the changes are particularly significant where an employer has deducted the levy from salaries but failed to send the money to the Fund.

The Government’s challenge will be ensuring that stronger enforcement translates into actual recovery of unpaid amounts.

Mr Hinga acknowledged that some employers are not paying despite the levy being in force.

‘The housing levy is growing. But are there employers who are not paying? Yes,’ he said.

Last week, I read a World Bank report on how artificial intelligence can help Africa’s economy. Its message is worth pondering: for Africa to reap AI’s benefits, we should not focus solely on building infrastructure but also on preparing people to use it.

The World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence, estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa could receive an economic boost of up to 4 percent through AI adoption and scaling over the next decade. AI can increase productivity across industries while lowering barriers to innovation.

With a phone or laptop and internet connection, people with no programming experience can now identify a problem, develop a solution and create a working prototype within minutes. Increasingly, all it takes to get started is a prompt. So why does Sub-Saharan Africa remain one of the least AI-ready regions in the world?

The International Monetary Fund attributes slow AI adoption to gaps in infrastructure, particularly electricity, internet access and digital skills. Kenya’s experience illustrates the challenge. In 2024, the country attracted a $1 billion digital ecosystem investment from Microsoft and UAE-based G42, including plans for a geothermal-powered data centre.

The project has since faced challenges over the electricity capacity required to support the planned infrastructure and has been suspended.

The lesson is that building AI infrastructure will take time and sustained investment. But as we build the systems that will power AI, we must also prepare the people who will put it to work.

Other countries are already investing in this capacity. Singapore, for instance, has made AI skills a priority in its workforce strategy. A pulse survey by the Infocomm Media Development Authority found that nearly three in four workers regularly use AI tools, with 85 percent of users saying the technology had improved their efficiency, productivity or work quality.

Africa does not need to replicate Singapore’s model, but the lesson is clear: preparing people to use AI can happen alongside building the infrastructure that supports it.

If AI could add up to 4 percent to Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy, then developing the skills of those who will use it should be as important as building the infrastructure that powers it.

From urban centres to rural communities, Africans need the skills to use AI for problem-solving, innovation and responsible adoption.

When illness strikes, Kenyan families often face two crises: how quickly a loved one can receive care and how the household will pay for it.

For families without adequate health cover, a hospital bill can disrupt school fees, rent, food budgets, business capital and savings. The patient may recover, but the financial strain can linger long after they return home. Kenya’s health insurance challenge is therefore also a household financial-security issue.

According to the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, health insurance coverage ranged from only 5 percent among people in the lowest wealth quintile to 58 percent among those in the highest. The disparity shows how closely access to protection remains tied to household income and financial stability.

Insurance payment structures do not always reflect how households earn. An annual premium paid in one transaction may suit someone on a predictable salary but prove difficult for farmers, traders, casual workers and small-business owners whose incomes fluctuate.

Flexible payment arrangements can ease this pressure. Spreading a premium across instalments gives households more room to plan payments alongside rent, school fees, food and other responsibilities. Instalments do not reduce the annual premium, but they can help families that can afford cover over time but struggle with a lump-sum payment.

At Jubilee Health Insurance, eligible customers can activate their health cover from the first payment and spread the balance over as many as ten monthly instalments.

Flexible payment must, however, be matched by clear communication. Customers need to understand the total annual cost, when cover begins, benefits, waiting periods, exclusions and what happens when a payment is delayed or missed.

Kenya’s expanding digital financial infrastructure also gives insurers new ways to reach customers.

The 2024 FinAccess Household Survey found that formal financial access had reached 84.8 percent. Yet digital enrolment must be supported by trained advisers and responsive customer-service teams so customers understand what they are buying.

Closing Kenya’s health insurance gap will require products that reflect real household needs, clear terms, accessible distribution and service that builds trust. Flexible payment is one practical step.