Category: Business Daily

Workers, traders and employers risk bank account freezes, asset seizures and PIN deactivation as the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) prepares to launch a crackdown on housing levy defaulters.

Changes to the law, which took effect on July 1, allow the KRA to enforce collection of unpaid levies through tough measures deployed on tax cheats and defaulters.

The KRA has been collecting the levy equivalent to 1.5 percent of gross pay or income from July 2024, but lacked the legal powers to crack down on defaulters, allowing thousands of workers and firms to evade payment.

The Finance Act 2026 plugged the loophole and offered the KRA higher commissions for the taxman on collection of housing levies, whose collection in the year to June stood at Sh79.9 billion.

Housing Principal Secretary Charles Hinga said the government now expects ‘greater bite’ from the KRA after the authority insisted on explicit legal powers before pursuing employers who deducted the levy from workers but failed to remit it.

‘KRA said they needed explicit powers to recover unremitted or unpaid amounts,’ Mr Hinga said Friday in responses to the Business Daily, signalling that the ministry now expects stronger enforcement.

An audit of the Affordable Housing Fund, which manages the billions of shillings the government gets from the levy, revealed that thousands of taxpayers were paying tax and not the housing levy.

Default rates were found to be higher in the informal sector where traders were not paying the levy and businesses such as corner shops, salons and bars were not remitting deductions from their staff pay.

The Auditor-General’s checks revealed that 6,390 companies remit Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax, which the KRA has powers to enforce compliance, and not the housing levy.

Mr Hinga said the KRA would begin internal reconciliations to identify unpaid levy and enforce recovery.

‘They are now able to assess, evaluate and prosecute taxpayers who have not remitted. Internally, they [KRA] are going to do reconciliations and do what they need to do,’ he said.

The levy, which was introduced in 2024, is intended to pay for the construction of affordable housing for low-income Kenyans.

But it sparked an outcry from the opposition and a large section of the population who feel burdened by a raft of new taxes.

An earlier law has left out the informal sector workers from paying the levy, triggering discrimination concerns. The High Court suspended collections for three months after ruling that the levy was unconstitutional for targeting the formal employment.

Parliament responded by passing the Affordable Housing Act, 2024, which broadened the framework to include workers in the informal, or jua kali, sector, allowing collections to resume from March 2024.

The Finance Act 2026 introduced Section 39B of the Tax Procedures Act, empowering the KRA Commissioner-General to recover unpaid fees, levies and charges collected under the law as though they were unpaid tax liabilities.

The change has expanded the KRA’s enforcement mandate beyond ordinary taxes and allows it to deploy the same recovery procedures used against tax defaulters.

It will hinge on section 42 of the Tax Procedures Act, which empowers the KRA to deactivate PINs, issue travel bans, collect cash due from the taxpayer’s banker and suppliers and freeze assets.

The KRA can order third parties-such as banks holding a defaulter’s money-to surrender funds directly to cover unpaid obligation.

The taxman can order third parties-such as banks holding a defaulter’s money-to surrender funds directly to cover unpaid obligations under the so-called garnishee orders.

Non-compliant firms and workers risk the suspension or deactivation of their KRA PIN, blocking business operations. The taxman can place restrictions or secure claims on properties and land to recover outstanding public debt. Amounts of Sh100,000 or less may be recovered through summary procedures.

Until the amendments took effect, the KRA reckoned that enforcement of unpaid housing levy fell outside its legal mandate despite being responsible for collecting the duty.

The Affordable Housing Fund Board in submissions to Parliament argued that the taxman needed explicit legal authority before it could act.

‘KRA itself has acknowledged the limitation, confirming that although it is mandated to collect the levy, enforcement falls outside its legal mandate,’ the board told the National Assembly’s Finance and National Planning Committee in June.

‘We are currently engaging with the KRA, which is keen to assist us in recovering all the outstanding levy that has not been remitted.’

Treasury records show housing levy collections have exceeded Sh200 billion since the levy was introduced in July 2023, rising from Sh54.16 billion in 2023/24 to Sh73.20 billion in 2024/25 and Sh79.10 billion in 2025/26.

Despite those collections, the Affordable Housing Fund Board estimates that more than Sh100 billion has been evaded, with employers, especially in informal sector, accused of failing to remit deductions.

The scale of the suspected arrears looks set to turn the housing levy into one of the largest non-tax recovery targets for the KRA.

The Airtel fraternity will miss the courage of Anne Kinuthia-Otieno, the founding chief executive of its mobile money division, Airtel Money Kenya.

Ms Kinuthia-Otieno is exiting the corner office at Airtel Money, ending a short but eventful stint during which she took on Safaricom’s M-Pesa and managed to carve out a slice of the mobile money market from the dominant player’s tight grip.

She has been appointed Visa’s vice-president and regional manager for East Africa, marking another milestone in her long career in finance as she now trains her eyes on cross-border payments.

Her move to Visa comes after a period in which she helped strengthen Airtel Money’s position in a market long dominated by M-Pesa.

Ms Kinuthia-Otieno cut her teeth in fintech in the banking halls of Barclays Bank, now Absa, at a time when banks were known more for bricks-and-mortar banking than mobile services, before being appointed the first chief executive of Airtel Money Kenya as a standalone business in 2022.

At the time, it was banks that were challenging for a piece of the billion’s digital money. Financial services still revolved around branches, paperwork and face-to-face interactions that excluded a large section of the informal economy.

She endeavoured to change this through the various roles she held at Absa, including Director of Governance and Controls, Sales and Distribution Director, Products Director, and Head of SME Banking.

At Absa, she was involved in developing the bank’s first mobile digital wallet, allowing customers to open accounts and access services through their phones.

But her biggest test in pushing the frontiers of financial inclusion came when she joined Airtel Money in October 2022.

She has since admitted that the four years at the helm of what she once described as a ‘challenger brand’ have been ‘blood, sweat and tears.’

‘Growing the brand is difficult, especially in a market where there’s a dominant player and so that keeps me awake at night, thinking about what we can do to create impact and make a difference,’ she said in a past interview, two years into the job.

It is her stewardship of Airtel Money’s battle to claw back market share from M-Pesa, after years of failed attempts, that has remarkably defined Ms Kinuthia’s legacy.

She might not have succeeded in upending M-Pesa’s dominant position, which still commands nearly 90 percent of the market, but she has sent a strong message to the competitor.

Airtel Money has since strengthened its market share to 10.9 percent as of March 2026, while M-Pesa’s share has fallen to 89.1 percent from its near-total dominance four years ago.

In four years, Airtel Money has grown its subscriber base more than five-fold, from 1.1 million in June 2022 to about 5.8 million by March 2026, as its market share climbed from 3.1 percent.

‘People often assume that competing with a dominant market leader is purely about market share. Whilst that is important, I also saw it differently,’ she says.

‘One of the things I’m proudest of is that Airtel Money became a stronger and more credible participant in Kenya’s payments ecosystem. We demonstrated that healthy competition benefits consumers, merchants and the broader economy,’ she adds.

Besides her tenacity, she has the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to thank for the achievement, which has seen Airtel Money more than triple its market share.

CBK not only pushed for mobile-money services to be hived off from traditional telecommunications services; it also pushed for interoperability, allowing customers to seamlessly send money across different mobile-money platforms.

‘The interoperability made possible with the help of the regulator, after five years, has enabled our customers to pay our bills online through the competitor’s paybill number,’ she said in the June 2024 interview.

For years, Airtel Kenya reckoned that its fighting chance lay in having M-Pesa separated from the other telecommunications services offered by Safaricom to level the playing field.

Indeed, Airtel appeared to have given up on mobile money, believing its fighting chance lay in telecommunications services-calling, texting and browsing.

But Airtel honchos saw M-Pesa as the proposition that kept customers locked into Safaricom’s network.

In Airtel’s view, competing against Safaricom was difficult because subscribers were somehow ensnared by the ‘pull’ of M-Pesa, with customers remaining on the network even when Airtel tried to lure them with lower call and SMS charges.

However, regulators and legislators pushed back, arguing that splitting M-Pesa, or declaring Safaricom dominant, would amount to punishing success.

But this changed when the CBK came into the picture, insisting on the separation of mobile money services from the other telco services in line with the requirements of the National Payment System Act, 2011.

The financial regulator said separating mobile money from telecommunications services would make it easier to regulate the sector and insulate mobile-money businesses from shocks that might emerge from other services.

CBK licensed Airtel Money as a Payment Service Provider on January 21, 2022, and granted it a transition period to complete the separation.

Six months later, Airtel Networks Kenya spun off its mobile money business into a separately run entity following the entry of minority shareholders into the venture.

Safaricom is yet to complete its separation of the mobile money unit, with reports that the move has been hampered by a Sh75 billion tax liability that will materialise after the spinoff.

The spinoff of Airtel Money came after London-listed Airtel Africa Plc sold a 25.77 percent stake in its local mobile money business as part of a continental deal that saw it raise $550 million (Sh65.2 billion) from four institutional investors.

The multinational’s interest in Airtel Money Kenya dropped to 74.23 percent in the year ended March from 100 percent a year earlier.

However, both Airtel Networks and Airtel Money remain subsidiaries of the Dubai-based Airtel Africa.

Airtel Money had operated for years but struggled to convert its presence into meaningful competition against M-Pesa’s overwhelming scale.

Ms Kinuthia-Otieno’s initial challenge when she joined the new organisation was not market share, but confidence. After years of operating in the shadow of a dominant rival, the organisation’s confidence was at its lowest ebb.

‘We focused on strengthening partnerships, creating an agent network, creating visibility in the market, improving customer experience, investing in operational resilience and building a culture where innovation and execution go hand in hand,’ she said.

Rather than making M-Pesa the centre of every decision, she said she pushed Airtel Money toward understanding customers, agents and partners and identifying problems competitors were not addressing.

‘I wanted us instead to become obsessed with our customers, understanding their frustrations, identifying opportunities others weren’t addressing and building solutions around those needs.’

Under her reign, the company strengthened its agent network and partnerships at a time Kenya’s payments industry was simultaneously moving toward greater interoperability between competing platforms.

Interoperability reduced some of the friction that had historically tied customers to individual mobile-money networks, giving smaller operators greater scope to compete.

‘We worked really well with the regulator and I really must thank the CBK for their incredible support especially in driving interoperability,’ she says.

For Caleb Mogoa, going to the gym is not optional. Even when he is unwell, the software developer says he still makes his way to his workout.

‘I work from home, so if I do not go to the gym, I will be in the house the whole day. Working out is a norm to me. Even if I am not feeling well, I still go to the gym.’

It is a routine he has maintained for more than five years, but the gym became more than a place to build muscle after a tragedy that changed his life.

Caleb was a passionate rugby player who represented his primary and secondary schools and later played at national level. However, a knee injury curtailed his rugby career when he joined campus. He had also been bullied for his small frame, prompting him to take up weight training to gain weight.

A few months later, his parents were killed and their bodies burnt in their home in Kisii. ‘I was in Nairobi when I got the call. It was so hard,’ he recalls.

Caleb and his siblings were advised to seek professional counselling, but he chose another outlet for his grief and anger.

‘I had so much anger. I had to look for a healthy way of overcoming the emotions. After the burial I decided to be fully committed to working out.’

The gym became his way of processing emotions without turning to alcohol or drugs. ‘I was angry because I could not imagine that someone could do that to my parents ,’ he says.

His commitment is reflected in the precision of his routine. He wakes at 4am to study until 6am, goes to the gym and then begins work.

‘I don’t like changing my routine. If I am travelling out of town, it has to be on a weekend, and I will work out before I travel.’

The 100-kilogramme fitness enthusiast also researches nutrition extensively and says he eats at least four meals a day, including eight eggs, to support his muscle-building goals.

He hopes eventually to reach 130 kilogrammes. ‘I do intense training and push my body to the limit. Some of the people I train with say that my schedule should be added in a thousand ways to die. From my research, when you push your body, feed the body, then it is going to grow.’

For Caleb, the gym has become an alternative to destructive coping mechanisms and a source of discipline. He hopes to write a book encouraging men to improve themselves and overcome life’s challenges.

‘If I were putting all this energy in drinking alcohol, I think I would be the worst drunkard. I can’t imagine that.’

‘I really can’t do without it.’

For Kelvin Maeri, the gym started differently. Four years ago, he saw it as a way of spending time with friends after classes. It gradually became a routine he now finds difficult to break.

‘I work out five days every week for two hours between six to eight in the evening. If I go without working out in a day or two, I feel like my body is totally off. I really can’t do without it.’

Maintaining the routine was not always easy. As a student, Kelvin used bursary money to pay his daily gym fee of Sh50 and later worked as a club bouncer to finance his training and the high-protein diet he had adopted.

‘I used to be a club bouncer from Friday-Sunday, 6pm to 6am, earning Sh1,000 per night. I would spend all that money on meals because I used to eat lots of protein, fruits, and blended smoothies. I would take between seven to 10 eggs per day.’

The Chuka University computer science graduate has seen his weight rise from 50 kilogrammes to 87 kilogrammes. He says the transformation has also improved his confidence and given him a way to manage stress.

‘If I have something troubling me, I just go into the gym, do a very nice session and when I walk out of the gym, I am free person from stress.’

His commitment now extends to his future relationships.

‘When the time comes, I want to marry a woman who is into fitness. I don’t want someone who will be questioning me on why I am going to the gym every other day or why I am spending money there.’

Building gym community

For Lynnete Odongo, 29, the gym is equally difficult to resist, although her motivation is different. She began working out at home before a neighbour inspired her to join a gym last year.

Initially intimidated by people lifting far heavier weights, she learned to focus on her own progress. ‘I saw people deadlifting 100kg but I could not get even the correct form with 20kg. I decided not to compare myself with others.’

Within months, she realised her enthusiasm had become something more.’I realised I was becoming an addict around June last year. It was raining but I was calling my coach to find out whether the gym was open so I could go.’

Lynnete wakes at 4:30am and is at the gym by 4:45am for a 90-minute workout before heading to work. She has also built a gym community where she serves as a team leader.

Her commitment comes at the expense of other spending. She cut her weekly budget for solo outings from Sh3,000 to Sh1,000, using the difference to fund her gym membership.

Lynnet is working to reduce body fat. She follows a strict diet and periodically takes on 100-day challenges that eliminate alcohol, sugar, fizzy drinks and junk food.

But where does dedication end and addiction begin?

Counselling psychologist Catherine Muthiani says frequent exercise is not, by itself, classified as an addiction. The concern arises when exercise becomes compulsive and begins interfering with a person’s wellbeing or other responsibilities.

‘When working out is causing harm to you, if it is a compulsive habit such that you feel you must work out even if you are feeling sick, or if you feel guilty when you have not done that, then that is not a normal workout.’

She says constantly increasing exercise intensity and duration simply to feel okay can also be a warning sign.

‘Working out is healthy but if one has to do more and more of the exercise and every other time to feel like they are okay, then there will be problems. If one is experiencing withdrawal symptoms like sleeplessness, we will be looking at a case of exercise addiction.’

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) is planning to deepen its investments in offshore listed share and private equities as it looks to diversify its portfolio from domestic government securities and property markets.

The State-backed pension fund is seeking to appoint an investment manager to establish and manage an offshore multi-asset portfolio, largely denominated in foreign currencies like the US dollar and will form the foundation of its alternative investments programme.

This will help the fund reduce its exposure to government securities, which currently constitutes 70 percent of its portfolio, with a total of Sh389 billion invested, as of June 2025.

The fund is also seeking to deploy its new found cash after workers’ annual contributions jumped over Sh100 billion on higher monthly savings, which rose from Sh200 per worker in 2023 to Sh6,480 in February.

Now, NSSF is seeking to cap its investments at not more than 60 percent and reduce reliance on blue chips like Safaricom, KCB, EABL and Equity Bank to drive its returns.

‘Reduce the fund’s structural concentration in domestic government securities and a narrow listed equity base, and provide diversification of returns and currency exposure away from the Kenya Shilling and Kenya sovereign credit,’ NSSF said in a disclosure, as part of the objective of the assignment the contractor it seeks will get.

Among the asset classes it seeks to expand its exposure in are global equities, most of which it expects to come from North America, largely the United States, some in Asia-Pacific and a few in Africa.

It also wants an increased portfolio in regional and local private equity and venture capital, trade finance and increased participation in privatisation, including initial public offerings (IPOs) of State Corporations.

The plan sets a target net return of 3 to 4 percent above the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) – a US interest benchmark on the cost of capital, for the offshore multi-asset portfolio over three-to-five-year periods.

The broader diversification programme is expected to target a minimum average 6.5 percent net return.

SOFR currently prevails at 3.64 percent, meaning that the overall targeted return on the offshore and alternative investment portfolio will be at least 10 percent.

Last year, NSSF realised a net return of 17 percent on all its investments.

Currently, it has only Sh2.5 billion in offshore investments, accounting for 0.47 percent of its portfolio. The Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) allows up to 5 percent of a fund’s assets to be invested in offshore equities.

Its offshore investments rose from Sh1 billion in 2024, or 0.27 percent of its assets. Similarly, its portfolio in private equity and venture capital more than doubled from Sh3.3 billion in 2024 to Sh7.3 billion, rising from a share of 0.85 percent to 1.31. RBA allows up to 10 percent exposure in this asset class.

NSSF also targets to invest some of the Kenyan workers’ money in infrastructure projects and affordable housing, in which it currently has zero exposure, with its recently commenced joint venture with China Road and Bridge Corporation in the construction of the Rironi-Mau Summit toll road set to be the first.

For infrastructure, NSSF plans to invest alongside development finance institutions through equity, fund commitments, mezzanine debt or joint-venture structures like the one with CRBC.

NSSF declined to comment on what level of exposure it targets for the offshore, venture capital, and infrastructure investments in the long run, saying it does not comment on ongoing procurement processes.

Its disclosures on the tender, however, reveal that the fund manager it settles on will have discretion to execute trades within parameters set by NSSF’s Investment Management Agreement and Alternative Investments Policy Statement. The offshore strategy will include active positioning and rebalancing across approved markets and asset classes.

The fund also disclosed that the fund manager will also need to build NSSF’s internal investment capacity to manage the offshore and VC activities, indicating that it plans a long-term participation in those markets.

The successful manager will be required to transfer investment processes and systems to the fund’s investment team, provide software, dashboards and reporting templates, and conduct at least three formal training sessions each year covering areas including offshore investing, alternatives, foreign-exchange risk and performance attribution.

Kenya Airways plans to onboard a strategic investor by the end of this year to recapitalise the airline as part of a turnaround strategy.

The Treasury said it is working with Kenya Airways to find an investor who will inject additional capital into the airline, a perennial beneficiary of taxpayer-funded bailouts, to help it weather the financial headwinds that have left it in the red.

The disclosure followed the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) follow-up on the status of its recommendation that the Treasury Cabinet Secretary develop and submit to Parliament a detailed debt management and exit strategy for Kenya Airways.

The strategy was to be developed by the government within three months of the formal adoption of PAC’s report.

PAC’s report

The recommendation was contained in PAC’s report on the accounts of the national government for the financial year ending June 2023, as adopted by the National Assembly on March 3, 2026.

‘Kenya Airways (KQ) and the government as the majority shareholder, are actively seeking to raise capital through a strategic investor to help stabilise, grow its operations and as a turnaround Strategy for the Airline,’ said Treasury in response to a recommendation by PAC.

‘This process is currently ongoing and is targeted to be finalized by December 2026. Once a consensus is reached, the necessary approvals will be sought and an update will be submitted,’ added the Treasury.

The management of KQ had indicated in June that it was seeking to raise at least $1.5 billion (Sh194.4 billion) from a strategic investor to be selected through an international tender that was to open in the coming months.

At the time, KQ said the capital-raising exercise was expected to conclude by the first quarter of 2027, with the airline betting on fresh funding to support operations weighed down by years of losses and a heavy debt burden.

The government, which holds a 48.9 percent stake in the airline, was expected to support the capital raise, offering comfort to potential investors.

Some institutions, including Parliament and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have been critical of the government’s continued financial support of KQ, flagging it as a major fiscal risk to a country that is teetering on debt distress.

The IMF has especially pushed hard for the airline to find a strategic investor to infuse stability into the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company and allow the government to exit. The Treasury said in February that it would offer the carrier to foreign investors in a deal valued Sh259.3 billion ($2 billion) to help turn around the airline and attach other assets to sweeten the transaction for a company operating with negative equity.

Financial needs

It is also expected to meet any pressing financial needs at the airline throughout 2026 as the search for a strategic investor continues.

The government had told the IMF that it would no longer provide direct cash injections to the airline once a new investor is secured.

KQ disclosed that the government had pledged to help it meet financial obligations that may arise during the year, signalling a continued burden on taxpayers in keeping the national carrier operational.

KQ’s equity position worsened to negative Sh132 billion last year from negative Sh118.2 billion previously as losses widened.

KQ’s liabilities exceeded its assets by a significant margin, with total liabilities standing at Sh315.2 billion against assets of Sh183.2 billion. This means shareholders would recover nothing if the airline were liquidated.

Lamu Governor Issa Abdalla Issa Timamy is part of a group of investors in line to buy majority stakes in two insurance firms from South Africa’s Absa Group.

Regulatory filings and court documents show the governor is a director and shareholder of First Assurance Investments Limited – the vehicle buying the majority stakes in Absa Life Assurance and First Assurance Kenya Limited.

Absa Group on Thursday last week announced it has signed an agreement to sell its 63.3 percent stake each in the two companies as the South African financial giant exits the insurance business in several African countries, including Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique.

A search at public registry revealed that First Assurance Investments Limited is owed 47.5 percent by Exclusive Holding Limited, a company associated with Governor Timamy.

The other 52.5 percent is under Syndicate Nominees, a company Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said he owned during his vetting for the ministerial position in 2022. Mr Mudavadi is also the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary.

It reflects a business union that morphed into a political partnership, which saw Mr Mudavadi serve as the Amani National Congress (ANC) party leader, with the governor his deputy.

ANC dissolved last year to allow a merger with President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA).

Registry document indicate that Issa Abdalla Issa directly owns 30 percent of Exclusive Holding Limited and his partner Salim Mohamed Busaidy 18 percent.

The Absa deal comes in the middle of a Sh363.3 million court battle pitting the governor and Mr Busaidy that has entangled the chief executives of NCBA Group, KCB Group and Co-operative Bank.

The criminal suit follows investigations into the alleged theft of Sh363.3 million from First Assurance Investment Ltd by Mr Busaidy.

According to the charge sheet, he siphoned the money from the firm between May 18, 2018 and April 30, 2024 by exploiting his position as a director and accessing the company’s accounts held at NCBA Bank, KCB Bank Kenya and Co-operative Bank.

The prosecution says he forged the signature of his co-director – the governor – on company cheques to facilitate the unlawful funds withdrawal.

Investigators add that the forged cheques, valued at between Sh150,000 and Sh350,000 each, were presented as duly authorised, allowing the money to be withdrawn over several years.

Mr Busaidy denies 120 criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud and steal, 114 counts of making a document without authority and one count of acquiring proceeds of crime.

Prosecutors are seeking to charge the three bank CEOs over failure to report suspicious transactions linked to the Sh363.3 million.

The case uncovered Governor Timamy’s links with First Assurance Investment.

It remains to be seen if Mr Busaidy will participate in the fundraiser for buying the Absa stakes as a shareholder of the investment group.

Sources close to the transaction say Absa Group will be seeking at least Sh3.8 billion for the two stakes.

For Mr Mudavadi, Mr Timany and their partner in First Assurance Investments Limited, the transaction will see them buy back the shares they sold to Absa – then Barclays Africa – in 2015 in a Sh2.2 billion deal.

Absa Life is the seventh-largest life insurer while First Assurance Kenya is ranked 13th among general insurers in a market where premiums continue to grow.

The current insurance penetration of three percent presents potential for investors seeking growth and dividends.

Absa’s exit from the insurance business in several countries marks a shift as it seeks to tap insurance billions through bancassurance as opposed to direct ownership.

The bancassurance model, or a partnership where a bank sells insurance products, will allow Absa to profit from the sector through commissions, without putting its capital on the line.

Absa Bank Kenya’s net profit from bancassurance grew by 35 percent to Sh1.3 billion in the year ended December 2025, placing it top in the country’s bancassurance business.

During the same period, Absa Life’s net profit fell by 26 percent to Sh790.1 million, a performance that offers clues on why the South African giant is selling its majority stake in the two insurance companies.

Absa’s deal with First Assurance Investments Limited comes as the Johannesburg-based group is increasing its stake in Absa Bank Kenya to 85 percent from 68.5 percent in a Sh30.9 billion deal.

Absa Group’s subsidiary, Absa Financial Services, last year sold its 100 percent stake in Absa Life Botswana to Hollard International, the international wing of South Africa’s Hollard Insurance Group.

It sold its entire stake in Absa Life Zambia and its Mozambique insurance operations to the same entity the same year.

‘We switched to a bancassurance distribution model with key partners across our Africa regions, hence selling our insurance businesses in Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique,’ Absa Group said in the 2025 annual report on the three transactions.

Mr Mudavadi owns First Assurance through two investment vehicles, First Assurance Investments Limited and directly through Syndicate Nominees, with a 12.35 percent ownership, giving the Prime CS a 21.26 percent stake.

Other shareholders of First Assurance are Mr Stephen Githiga (four percent), Chandaria Ventures Limited (1.67 percent), Epoch Investments Limited and Absa Pension Services Limited with 0.84 percent each.

Mr Githiga is the former chief executive officer of First Assurance Company and Sasini.

Chandaria Ventures is associated with Darshan Chandaria and Neer Chandaria, while Epoch Investments is associated with Jambojet chairman Ayisi Makatiani.

Absa Life Assurance Kenya was licensed in 2015 and has grown into the top 10 life insurers bracket in the country.

It was the first life insurer in Kenya to adopt a bancassurance.

First Assurance was established in 1930 in Kenya as Prudential Assurance Company and Kenyan investors bought the entire stake from British investors in 1991.

The public discourse in the run-up to the passing of the Finance Bill, 2026 raised a familiar concern about unpredictable tax changes. Kenyan businesses face a recurring nightmare: implementing new tax rules before they fully understand them.

Even before the ink on the Finance Act, 2026 had barely dried, uncertainty was already rippling through the business landscape.

A recent example appeared in media reports of furniture makers warning of price hikes and job cuts after the introduction of a 30 percent excise duty on imported inputs such as MDF, particle board, blockboard and plywood, a measure that was not contained in the Bill.

Businesses are right to worry. But there is an often-overlooked victim of tax instability, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Kenya’s National Tax Policy notes that frequent changes in tax laws cause unpredictability and inefficiency in tax administration and impose additional costs on taxpayers and the revenue administration. The Public Finance Management Act, 2012 also calls for a reasonable degree of predictability in tax rates and the tax base. Stability, then, is not merely an investor issue, but a practical requirement for effective collection and administration.

Unpredictability harms the tax authority through increased disputes and litigation. In October 2024, it was reported that Sh313.5 billion in tax revenue was tied up in the courts and tribunal.

When new rules arrive suddenly or are introduced within a short window to enactment, they often reflect multiple competing views that have not been fully reconciled. The result can be poorly drafted provisions and unclear transition rules, which taxpayers then challenge more frequently and aggressively.

Tax officers subsequently spend significant time preparing objections and defending assessments. Litigation will always have a place in tax administration, but when ambiguity becomes common, disputes stop being exceptional and resources that should go to service, education, and targeted enforcement are absorbed by case management.

Unpredictability also undermines compliance. Tax administration works best when most people comply voluntarily because they trust the system and understand the expectations.

In an unstable environment, even willing taxpayers struggle. Systems may not be updated in time, supply contracts may not anticipate new costs, and guidance may lag the law. Errors become more likely, and uncertainty encourages defensive behaviour. Trust erodes and KRA must then spend more on audits, enforcement and debt collection to achieve the same results.

Instability can also shrink the tax base. When tax policy changes constantly or unpredictably, some firms delay expansion, scale down, or relocate to more stable jurisdictions. The long-term result is fewer stable taxpayers and a heavier burden on the compliant minority.

There is also a direct administrative cost to KRA. Each major change requires updates to tax systems, revisions to internal guidelines, retraining of staff, new public communication, and more time spent answering taxpayer queries. When change is frequent, the tax authority spends more time retooling than on improving service delivery and curbing deliberate tax evasion.

Another cost is weaker revenue forecasting and the creation of unrealistic targets. Frequent changes make it difficult for the National Treasury to estimate what will actually be collected. When forecasts are unreliable, budgeting becomes harder, planning for public services becomes less precise, and debt management becomes more complicated. Pressure then flows to the revenue authority to deliver numbers that may not match economic conditions.

In that environment, overly aggressive assessments can appear as a quick fix. Taxpayers push back, disputes rise, and the cycle returns to costly litigation in which both the state and businesses expend resources that could have supported productive investment.

The lesson is simple, predictability is not anti-tax, it is pro-collection. What should change going forward is not the government’s ability to reform the tax system, but the discipline with which reforms are introduced.

The National Tax Policy recommends that tax laws be reviewed once every five years, and there is ongoing debate as to whether we should even have a Finance Bill every year.

The National Treasury and Parliament can anchor stability by keeping to a clear review cycle, limiting late-stage amendments that were not tested in public participation, and insisting on clear transition rules. When change is necessary, adequate lead time should be provided so that systems and contracts can adjust, and the expected revenue effect can be measured realistically.

Businesses, too, should participate early and constructively, not only by opposing proposals, but by presenting workable alternatives and clear evidence of impact.

Tax policy will always evolve, especially in a country balancing development needs and fiscal pressure. Yet predictable law, orderly change and clear guidance reduce disputes, strengthen compliance, protect the tax base and lower administration costs. If Kenya wants sustainable revenue, stability should be treated as a revenue strategy in its own right.

Every year, conversations about digital advancement tend to focus on innovation. We celebrate faster networks, smarter platforms, seamless payments and the opportunities that digital transformation continues to create for individuals, businesses and governments.

Yet there is another conversation that deserves equal attention: Online safety.

As digital adoption has accelerated, so have the risks accompanying it. The same technologies that make it easier to transact, communicate and access services have also created new opportunities for criminals to exploit trust and vulnerability.

Digital adoption has transformed how we live and work. Small businesses can reach customers nationwide from smartphones, entrepreneurs can launch online ventures and families can send and receive money instantly.

These advances have unlocked enormous economic potential, particularly in markets such as Kenya where digital financial services have become an integral part of everyday life.

But the success of the digital economy depends on one essential ingredient: trust. People must feel confident that they can communicate, transact and share information safely online.

The scale of today’s online risks highlights why that trust cannot be taken for granted.

According to the Communications Authority of Kenya Cyber Security Report, Kenya recorded 3.7 billion cyber threat events between January and March 2026.

The report also recorded 68.7 million malware attacks, 46.4 million brute-force attacks, 12.1 million web application attacks and 8.2 million DDoS (Distributed Denial-Of-Service) attacks underscoring the growing scale of cyber threats facing the country.

According to the Central Bank of Kenya’s Financial Sector Stability Report, fraud losses in the banking sector reached Sh1.59 billion in 2024 with cyber fraud cases more than doubling to 353.

These trends remind us that digital safety is no longer solely a technical issue. It is a societal issue that affects individuals, businesses and institutions alike.

I recently reflected on a business owner who had embraced digital tools to grow her enterprise. Payments, customer engagement, and orders were all handled digitally. One day, she received what appeared to be a legitimate call requesting information to secure her account. The caller sounded convincing, and she complied. Within seconds, she became a victim of fraud.

What she lost was more than money. She lost confidence in the very digital platforms that had helped her business succeed. That experience highlights an important reality: many online threats do not rely solely on technological vulnerabilities. They often succeed by exploiting human behaviour including trust, urgency, curiosity and the instinct to be helpful.

This is why fraud awareness has become one of the most important pillars of digital resilience.

Today’s fraudsters are increasingly sophisticated. They impersonate trusted organizations, create convincing digital experiences and use social engineering techniques designed to pressure people into making quick decisions.

Take for example, a customer who receives a call from someone posing as their bank or mobile provider and is convinced to share an OTP or personal details. Within seconds, the fraudster completes a SIM swap, accesses the customer’s mobile banking details and steals their funds. Similar tactics are used in impersonation scams where criminals pose as executives, suppliers or customer service agents to trick victims into revealing sensitive information and making payments.

Across industries, organizations are investing heavily in strengthening identity verification, implementing multi-factor authentication, monitoring suspicious activity and regularly training employees on cyber threats. These preventative measures play a critical role in detecting and preventing fraud before it causes harm.

Yet technology alone cannot solve the problem. An informed digital user is more likely to recognise suspicious activity, verify information before acting, protect personal information and report potential threats before others become victims. Awareness remains one of the most effective forms of defense.

Building a secure digital economy requires collective responsibility. Industry leaders, regulators, educators, businesses and consumers all have a role to play in strengthening digital trust. As emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence reshape the digital landscape, fraud tactics will continue to evolve. Awareness must evolve with them.

Innovation will shape the future of the digital economy, but trust will sustain it. And while technology can help us identify threats, it is awareness that empowers people to avoid them. That is what will keep our digital economy strong, resilient, and trusted for generations to come.

For years, many social media users have found success online by finding trending content, reposting it quickly, adding catchy captions and riding the engagement wave.

The strategy helped fuel the rise of thousands of meme pages, news aggregation accounts and content creators across platforms such as X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Many built large audiences – eventually monetising them to generate revenue – without producing much original content of their own.

But the financial success of the model could be in its last days as the world’s largest social media companies change their monetisation rules to place greater emphasis on originality.

The changes have significant implications for Kenya’s fast-growing community of content creators, many of whom rely on platform payouts, brand partnerships and advertising income.

This week, X announced that it is winding down its existing Revenue Sharing programme and replacing it with a new system called Original Content Rewards.

The new model is designed to reward creators who bring “original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity and commentary” to the platform.

X said qualifying content will include original reporting and analysis, photos and videos created by the user, as well as memes and graphics designed by the creator themselves.

Commentary, which refers to posts reacting to or giving opinions about other posts on X, will still qualify, but only where creators add significant original value.

“If your content regularly incorporates material created by others, you’ll need to contribute meaningful original value for it to qualify under our original content guidelines,” the company said.

The platform said content copied from another account, downloaded from another platform and re-uploaded, or reposted without substantial transformation will be excluded from monetisation.

The changes are part of X’s effort to address long-standing complaints about users sharing low-value provocative content to boost metrics – also known as engagement farming, plagiarism, content theft and accounts that rely heavily on reposting viral material.

X also introduced stricter conduct requirements, and creators seeking payouts must avoid using bots or automated tools to inflate engagement, refrain from posting misleading content, and stop repeatedly asking followers to like, repost, or otherwise boost engagement metrics.

Similarly, YouTube this week also announced that new creators will face significantly higher thresholds before they can begin earning money from advertising and subscriptions.

Starting February next year, creators will need at least 8,000 qualified watch hours over the previous 12 months or 20 million qualified ‘Shorts’ views over 90 days to qualify for monetisation.

This is an increase from the current requirements of 4,000 watch hours or 10 million views on the platform’s ‘Shorts’ vertical video tab.

The Google-owned platform says the changes are necessary to keep pace with its rapid growth. It says YouTube Shorts now generate more than 200 billion daily views globally, while viewers spend more than a billion hours watching YouTube on television every day.

The update is also likely to reduce the number of creators entering the monetisation programme by requiring them to demonstrate larger and more consistent audiences before earning revenue.

The two tech giants’ announcements follow a similar move by Instagram. In May, the Meta-owned photo and video-sharing platform announced a crackdown on unoriginal content, saying accounts that repeatedly repost content created by others would be less likely to appear in recommendations shown to users who do not already follow them.

Since recommendation algorithms are one of the most important drivers of audience growth, reduced visibility can directly affect a creator’s ability to attract new followers and generate income.

The latest changes illustrate how major platforms are increasingly prioritising creators who produce original content over those who primarily aggregate, recycle or republish material from elsewhere.

It has significant implications for Kenya’s creator economy, which has expanded rapidly since the Covid-19 pandemic, creating new income opportunities for influencers, content creators, comedians and digital publishers.

Beyond platform payouts from Meta, X, and Google, many creators now earn up to millions of shillings a year through sponsored content, affiliate marketing, product placements and direct sales of goods and services.

According to a recent study by Nairobi-based research and analytics firm OdipoDev, Kenya’s leading social media influencers earned a combined Sh296 million from brand-sponsored posts in 2025, contributing to an estimated Sh1.07 billion in total creator economy payouts.

That growth has encouraged the emergence of entire business models built around audience aggregation, including pages that curate viral videos, repost memes, summarise news from media houses or repurpose content from other creators.

But now, accounts that have relied heavily on such content will find it hard to qualify for monetisation, maintain visibility or access platform-generated revenue.

Even where creators retain their audiences, being de-monetised or having their reach reduced will be a dire financial blow.

The Treasury expects Kenya’s budget deficit to grow by Sh143 billion to Sh1.288 trillion, driven by higher interest payments on domestic debt and potential tax cuts in the run-up to the 2027 General Election.

A wider budget deficit signals increased borrowing because government spending has surpassed revenues by a larger margin than previously planned.

New expenditure and revenue projections by the Treasury show that the 2026/27 budget is expected to increase by Sh40.5 billion to Sh4.86 trillion, up from the Sh4.82 trillion approved in the June 2026 budget statement.

At the same time, the government is cutting its projected revenue for the year by Sh101.9 billion to Sh3.529 trillion.

Income taxes shoulder the biggest share of the revenue revision at Sh78.6 billion to Sh2.78 trillion, indicating that Treasury anticipates lower collections from businesses and workers in an economy facing growth headwinds due to global geopolitical shocks and the expected El Niño rains.

While official targets remain as approved in the June budget, the Draft 2026 Budget Review and Outlook Paper (BROP) indicates the expected changes in the fiscal framework that are usually implemented through supplementary budgets.

Excise duty and VAT collections are being revised downwards by Sh17.4 billion and Sh18.3 billion to Sh364.8 billion and Sh810.3 billion respectively, while non-tax revenue is expected at Sh106.6 billion, compared to the projection ofSh127.1 billion in the June budget.

However, the state is raising the import duty target from Sh186.2 billion to Sh220.8 billion.

‘Kenya’s economic growth outlook for 2026 has been revised downward to five percent from the earlier projection of 5.3 percent, reflecting the adverse effects of the Middle East conflict on domestic economic activity,’ the BROP says.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi is expected to review Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax bands, further denting collections from workers.

Ahead of the June budget, the minister said the proposed PAYE cuts would blow a Sh35 billion hole in government revenue.

Having already halved VAT on fuel to eight percent in April after a price surge caused by the war in Iran, the Treasury paused the payslip relief Mr Mbadi and President William Ruto had been promising since February.

In last month’s fuel price review, the lower VAT arrangement was extended to October.

Even as the National Treasury anticipates revenue headwinds, higher interest charges on domestic debt are expected to force a Sh40.5 billion increase in expenditure.

The BROP projects that interest charges on the government domestic debt of Sh7.3 trillion will hit Sh1.03 trillion this financial year, compared to the June budget estimate of Sh986.7 billion.

In the 2025/26 fiscal year, the government spent about Sh862.7 billion on domestic interest payments, benefiting from a decline in interest rates in Treasury bills and bonds through the year.

The war in Iran has led to a jump in inflation due to higher energy prices, putting upward pressure on interest rates.

To fund the higher budget deficit, the government is expected to borrow Sh1.04 trillion from the domestic market, and Sh247.2 billion from external lenders.

The June budget had pegged the domestic borrowing at Sh898 billion, while external borrowing remains unchanged as per the projections of the BROP.