Category: Business Daily

Listed mortgage lender HFCB Kenya (formerly HFC, Housing Finance, HF Group) has secured a partial court victory after the High Court overturned an order requiring it to refund a borrower Sh8.4 million over a disputed mortgage account.

The court ruled that the evidence used to calculate the alleged overcharge was unreliable. However, it upheld findings by the lower court that HFCB breached its loan agreement by varying interest rates without giving the contractually required notice and by imposing charges not provided for in the mortgage documents.

The High Court partly allowed the lender’s appeal against a 2024 judgment by the Milimani Chief Magistrate’s Court, which had ordered HFCB to refund the money to the estate of the late Benson Njenga Ndindi, together with interest dating back to March 2000.

Mortgage dispute

The case arose from a mortgage taken in 1991 to finance a property in Nairobi’s Runda estate.

The estate argued that HFCB repeatedly increased the interest rate from the agreed 18 percent to as high as 26 percent without issuing the four months’ written notice required under the charge document.

It also accused the lender of imposing penalty interest, default charges and other unlawful debits that inflated the outstanding loan balance long after the facility had allegedly been repaid.

The magistrate accepted those claims and relied on an analysis by the Interest Rates Advisory Centre (IRAC), which concluded that the borrower had overpaid the loan by Sh8.4 million by March 2012.

On appeal, however, the High Court found that although HFCB breached the loan agreement by varying interest rates without the required notice, the IRAC report did not conclusively establish the amount allegedly overcharged.

‘The finding of the subordinate court that the respondent was overcharged in the sum of Sh8.4 million is set aside, as the IRAC report upon which it was premised was fundamentally flawed and lacked the requisite probative value to sustain such a finding,’ the court ruled.

The judge said the expert report failed to provide detailed calculations supporting its conclusions, overlooked key contractual documents, including a 2003 loan restructuring agreement, and relied solely on records supplied by the borrower without seeking corresponding records from the bank.

The court nevertheless upheld the magistrate’s finding that HFCB unlawfully varied the interest rate without first issuing the required four months’ notice.

‘The issuance of notice’ was a contractual precondition for varying the interest rate, the court said, noting that one of the bank’s witnesses admitted during the trial that, on one occasion, the interest rate was changed on the same day the notice was issued.

The court also upheld findings that HFCB was not entitled to levy penalty interest, interest on arrears or default charges because those fees were not provided for in either the charge document or the letter of offer.

However, it overturned the lower court’s finding that HFCB had unlawfully debited insurance premiums, ruling that the issue had not been pleaded and should not have been determined.

The judge also set aside the finding that HFCB breached the Banking Act’s in duplum rule, holding that the evidence did not support that conclusion.

Rather than dismissing the claim, the court directed the parties to appoint an independent accountant within 14 days to recompute the mortgage account using a fixed interest rate of 18 percent throughout the loan period.

The fresh computation will exclude penalty interest, interest on arrears and default charges while taking into account the 2003 restructuring agreement.

If the parties fail to agree on an accountant, the chairperson of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya will nominate one. The accountant will have 45 days to file a report, after which the court will issue further orders, including any refund that may be due.

An Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) manager has lost a court bid to overturn a disciplinary demotion imposed after she was accused of improperly authorising the release of confidential commission information.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court ruled that the manager, Agatha Wanjiku, challenged the decision too late and could not reclaim the salary and benefits she lost.

Justice Bernard Manani found that she waited more than three years after the IEBC dismissed her internal appeal before asking the court to invalidate the disciplinary action, leaving the court without jurisdiction to revisit the merits of the demotion.

The court found that the case lodged in December 2023 challenging a 2019 decision had been filed outside the statutory three-year limitation period prescribed for employment disputes.

Ms Wanjiku joined the commission’s predecessor, the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, in 2010 as Manager for Internal Audit and Compliance before being absorbed into the IEBC after the constitutional transition.

Her troubles began in September 2018 when the commission accused her of improperly handling classified information by authorising the photocopying and sharing of confidential documents without the approval of the accounting officer. She was issued a show-cause letter and immediately placed on interdiction.

She denied wrongdoing and maintained that the accounting officer had authorised the release of the information through a text message and said she had merely acted on those instructions.

She also argued that the disciplinary committee was improperly constituted because the same accounting officer later sat on the panel that heard the case.

The disciplinary committee nevertheless found her culpable in April 2019 and demoted her from Grade Four manager to Grade Six regional accountant. Her internal appeal was rejected three months later.

She was earning Sh235,475 before being demoted to Grade Six and her salary reduced to 145,468.

She remained in the lower grades until the commission progressively upgraded her, eventually restoring her to Grade Four in January 2023 as Manager for Risk and Compliance.

However, the IEBC placed her at the entry-level salary of Sh164,258 for that grade instead of the higher pay she had earned before the disciplinary action.

Ms Wanjiku then sued, seeking salary arrears, pension contributions, leave pay, transfer allowance and other benefits. She argued that the demotion was unjustified and that the commission should have restored her previous salary once she returned to Grade Four.

The IEBC defended its actions, saying its Human Resource Policy Manual authorised disciplinary demotions and required employees on interdiction to receive half their basic salary together with medical allowance but no other benefits.

It also said employees promoted back to a higher grade were entitled only to the salary applicable at the point of entry into that grade under the Salaries and Remuneration Commission structure.

The judge said that the court could not reopen the legality of the demotion because the cause of action arose when the commission rejected Ms Wanjiku’s appeal in July 2019.

“The fact that the claimant moved to challenge the propriety of the respondent’s decision to demote her more than three years after the decision had been made dislodges this court’s jurisdiction to inquire into that issue,” the judge said.

The court also upheld the commission’s decision to pay her half salary during interdiction.

“An employee on interdiction shall be paid half basic salary and medical allowance. No other stipulated allowance will be paid,” the judge quoted from the commission’s Human Resource Policy Manual before finding that the payments complied with its rules.

On her claim for restored pay, the court ruled that demotion lawfully reduced her salary and benefits and that returning to Grade Four did not entitle her to resume earning the higher salary attached to her previous service in that grade.

“There is no legitimate basis for her contention that she ought to have been paid what she was earning when the decision to demote her was made,” the judge said before dismissing the suit.

Across East Africa, tourism has officially entered a high-growth era. Yet an analogue gap in digital payments and operational infrastructure threatens to prevent businesses from fully capitalising on the boom.

The region has moved well beyond the pandemic slowdown and is now outperforming many global tourism markets. In 2025, East Africa emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism regions.

Kenya alone welcomed 2.7 million international visitors, according to the Ministry of Tourism, a 12.97 percent increase from the 2.39 million recorded in 2024. The surge generated nearly Sh500 billion in tourism earnings.

The momentum extended across the region. Tanzania’s tourism revenue rose to an estimated $4.4 billion in 2025, up 12.82 percent from $3.9 billion the previous year. Uganda posted an even stronger performance, with tourism earnings climbing 26.56 percent from $1.28 billion to $1.62 billion.

These impressive numbers, however, mask structural weaknesses that continue to undermine the sector’s competitiveness. Long booking chains, fragmented reservation systems, cash-dependent transactions and inconsistent customer experiences are limiting growth and reducing efficiency.

Globally, about 40 percent of travel payments are now processed digitally. In Africa, however, digital payment adoption for travel bookings remains significantly lower. Many hotels, lodges and tour operators still rely on manual systems that slow operations, increase errors and make it difficult to deliver seamless guest experiences.

This is a missed opportunity. Kenya’s two decades of M-Pesa adoption have already created one of Africa’s most mature mobile payment ecosystems.

The challenge is no longer digital payments themselves but connecting them with booking platforms, accounting software and day-to-day business operations through modern, integrated technology.

If Kenya is to achieve its target of attracting five million international visitors and 10 million domestic tourists by 2027, accelerating digital transformation across the hospitality sector must become a priority.

That requires action on four fronts. Policymakers should strengthen data protection standards while offering incentives that help small businesses transition from cash-based operations. Software developers must design intuitive platforms backed by reliable customer support.

Technology providers should keep pricing transparent and transaction costs affordable for growing businesses.

Finally, digital solutions must integrate seamlessly with existing accounting systems, banking platforms and mobile money services to enable real-time data synchronisation, faster reconciliation and a smoother experience for both businesses and travellers.

Kenya’s official foreign exchange reserves are expected to come under renewed pressure, the World Bank has said, citing rising import costs and a slowdown strain in hard-currency sources such as diaspora remittances.

The multilateral lender links this to escalation of external pressures and sees Kenya’s current account deficit worsening to a wider-than-expected 4.3 percent of GDP, compared to a conservative three percent outlook by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

A country’s current account is its record of the flow of money into and out of the nation in the form of imports and exports, investment earnings, and foreign aid. If a country exports more than it imports, it has a trade surplus while the opposite holds if it imports more.

The wider-than-anticipated current account balance is expected to result in increased exchange rate pressures, which could necessitate the CBK to part with a portion of its reserves to curb volatility in the exchange rate.

The CBK usually buys and sells foreign exchange from its reserves to contain any volatility on the shilling by introducing or withdrawing hard currency liquidity.

The official reserves have already recorded a reduction since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran in March, but the Kenya Shilling has held firm to trade in a narrow-bound range of 129 to 130 units against the US dollar.

‘Foreign exchange reserves decreased by $1.2 billion (Sh155.3 billion) to $13.4 billion (Sh1.73 trillion) as of early May 2026 or 5.7 months of import cover,’ the World Bank said.

‘Even if they remain above the CBK’s statutory minimum of four months, these developments point to emerging external pressures in a more challenging global environment.’

CBK’s foreign exchange reserves remained at 5.7 months of import cover or Sh1.7 trillion ($13.17 billion) as of last week. The current account deficit had already widened to 2.8 percent of GDP by December 2025, driven by a larger merchandise trade gap and moderating remittance inflows.

In March, international reserves peaked at Sh1.89 trillion or 6.2 months of import cover, the highest level in five years. ‘However, with the pressures from the Middle East conflict, external accounts are being severely affected,’ the World Bank added.

‘Leading export indicators suggest a six percent fall in exports in March 2025 compared to March 2025, with an increasing import bill of 21 percent from petroleum products. Moreover, the country experienced one of the sharpest monthly drops in remittances in recent years, with up to $40 million (Sh5.17 billion) in monthly remittances potentially at risk.’

In April, CBK cut its projection of diaspora remittances for 2026 by Sh40.5 billion ($313 million) on the expectation of lower inflows from the Middle East due to the war and recently introduced transaction taxes in Saudi Arabia.

The apex bank expects diaspora remittances to total Sh660.3 billion ($5.1 billion) this year from an earlier estimate of Sh701.8 billion ($5.42 billion).

Inflows from the Gulf region account for roughly 10 percent of Kenya’s annual remittance inflows.

The increased recruitment of Kenyan workers into the Gulf region is boosting diaspora remittance flows from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.

The Iran war has, however, disrupted the economies of the Gulf countries and has slowed down new entries into the region.

‘We expect a slight deceleration because of the direct impact (of the conflict) on the remittances from the Gulf area where about 10 percent of our inflows come from. But there are also potentially indirect effects arising from the possible economic growth slowdown in other countries, for example the US,’ CBK Governor, Kamau Thugge said in April.

Diaspora remittances are Kenya’s largest source of hard currency ahead of tourism receipts and agriculture exports.

The CBK has been noted to continue exercising prudent foreign exchange management as the shilling holds firm against major world currencies.

‘CBK continues to maintain effective operating controls and foreign exchange management,’ the World Bank said.

Dutch brewer Heineken has secured a Sh250 million guarantee from Equity Bank, enabling it to suspend the payment of disputed interest on a Sh1.47 billion compensation award to businessman Ngugi Kiuna’s Maxam Limited in a long-running distributorship fallout.

The Court of Appeal on May 29 granted Heineken a conditional stay of execution, directing the brewer to furnish a Sh250 million bank guarantee in favour of Maxam within 30 days, pending the hearing and determination of its appeal.

The dispute stems from the termination of a distributorship agreement in January 2016, for which the courts found Heineken liable to compensate Maxam.

In issuing the guarantee, Equity Bank stated that it would remain valid until the earlier of payment of any amount demanded under it or the determination of Heineken’s appeal.

“This guarantee will automatically become null and void upon the earliest of payment by us of the amount demanded hereunder or upon pronouncement of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in favour of our customer’s appeal, without any further act or declaration on the part of the beneficiaries being required, and we shall no longer be bound under this guarantee,” the bank said.

At the centre of the latest appeal is whether interest should be included in the compensation awarded to Maxam.

The distributor successfully persuaded the High Court to include interest in the final payout, a move disputed by Heineken, which argues that interest was not pleaded or awarded in the original judgments delivered by the High Court in 2019 and the Court of Appeal in 2024.

According to the brewer, the inclusion of interest would increase the amount payable from Sh1.47 billion to more than Sh1.7 billion.

In its intended appeal, Heineken maintains that interest cannot be added to the damages because the issue was never pleaded, considered or awarded during the original proceedings and was only introduced after judgment.

A three-judge bench of the Court of Appeal agreed that the brewer had raised an arguable issue deserving consideration.

“In the result, we are persuaded that this is an appropriate case for the grant of a conditional stay,” the judges said while directing Heineken to provide the Sh250 million bank guarantee as security.

The dispute arose after Maxam Ltd and its sister companies-Uganda’s Modern Lane Ltd and Tanzania’s Olepasu Ltd-sued Heineken East Africa Import Company Ltd and Heineken International B.V over the cancellation of distributorship agreements entered into in May 2013.

The distributors argued that by the time the contracts were terminated, they had made substantial financial investments that were rendered worthless by the cancellation.

According to Maxam, it had entered into binding agreements with third parties for warehousing, logistics and delivery services, significantly expanding Heineken’s market presence and boosting the brand’s profitability in the region.

Through its advocate, the company accused the brewer of unilaterally terminating the agreements on flimsy, selfish and malicious grounds.

Mr Kiuna argued that the termination was intended to edge Maxam out of the business, deprive it of income and pave the way for new distributors to take over the contracts under more favourable commercial terms.

Last November, the High Court dismissed Heineken’s application challenging the computation of the decree and allowed Maxam’s request to include interest in the compensation award.

Heineken has maintained that the additional interest would substantially increase its financial liability. The brewer also argued that Maxam is no longer operational and would be unable to refund the disputed amount if the appeal succeeds.

It further contended that enforcing the decree before the appeal is heard would expose the company to irreparable financial and reputational harm, including the risk of insolvency proceedings.

Every budget season in East Africa arrives with familiar promises. Jobs, industrialisation, youth empowerment, digital transformation, value addition, exports and inclusive growth.

The language is right. The ambition is necessary. But too often, the people expected to turn these promises into reality are kept at the fringes of national planning. The small trader. The food processor. The creative agency. The software developer. The small manufacturer.

The fundi training two apprentices. The woman running a logistics operation from her phone. The farmer group trying to move from raw produce to packaged goods.

These businesses are not side characters in East Africa’s growth story. They are the story.

East Africa will not grow unless it embraces small and medium-sized enterprises as serious economic infrastructure and partners in national development.

Historically, governments have viewed small businesses through a narrow tax lens. Are they registered? Are they paying tax or are they evading? Are they compliant? Of course, businesses must pay tax.

But the more strategic question is this: what would happen if governments first saw SMEs not as potential offenders, but as engines of employment, innovation, service delivery and social stability?

Across the world, that lesson is already clear. Germany’s Mittelstand has shown how small and medium enterprises can anchor industrial strength, exports and skilled employment. Taiwan’s SME economy helped build a manufacturing and technology base that turned a small island into a global player.

These economies did not grow because small firms were over-policed into excellence. They grew because policy treated them as builders of national competitiveness.

Kenya’s 2026/27 budget language recognises MSMEs as a major pillar of the economy. That matters. Kenya’s MSMEs represent nearly all businesses, employ millions of people and contribute a substantial share of GDP. The policy instruments named around the Hustler Fund, credit guarantees, MSME development hubs and formalisation are useful steps.

They respond to a real problem: many viable businesses cannot access affordable credit because banks still demand collateral, paperwork and security that small firms simply do not have.

But Kenya’s contradiction remains sharp. Too much of the SME conversation still feels like tax administration dressed up as enterprise support.

Digital compliance tools, eTIMS obligations and stricter reporting may improve revenue collection, but for a business struggling with rent, salaries, delayed payments and expensive loans, compliance without visible benefit feels punitive.

Formalisation must come with a bargain: cheaper credit, faster public payments, procurement access, simpler licensing and fewer arbitrary disruptions from national and county officials.

Uganda’s 2026/27 budget is built around the monetisation of the economy through agriculture, industrialisation, services, digital transformation and market access.

This is a strong frame because it recognises that households and small producers must move into income-generating activity. Programmes such as Emyooga, the Katale Loan Facility, the Small Business Fund and the Agricultural Credit Facility speak directly to the financing gaps faced by market vendors, farmer groups and small entrepreneurs.

The challenge for Uganda is execution beyond state programmes. Credit alone does not build a business.

A trader who receives a loan but lacks storage, reliable transport, digital records, market information and buyer relationships is merely being pushed into a tougher battlefield. Uganda’s next step should be to connect enterprise financing to value chains, industrial parks, export markets and practical business development support.

Tanzania’s 2026/27 budget offers one of the more interesting signals in the region. A proposed 12-month income tax holiday for newly registered presumptive taxpayers is a sensible nudge toward formalisation. . The Machinga Empowerment Fund, youth economic empowerment allocations and export-oriented credit support also point in the right direction.

Small businesses are not adversaries. They are partners in growth. Unless governments place them at the heart of planning, budgets will remain elegant documents, manifestos will gather mould between election cycles, and national visions will remain dreams conceived in rooms far away from the people expected to make them real.

East Africa does not lack ambition. It lacks a deeper trust in the people already building its future.

The next budget cycle should begin there.

But Tanzania also shows the tension that runs across the region. Increasing the presumptive tax rate from 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent risks making formalisation more expensive just when government wants more people to enter the formal space.

Turnover taxes can be blunt. A business with high sales and thin margins may look successful on paper while quietly suffocating in reality. If formalisation feels like a trap, informality will remain rational.

Rwanda has built a reputation for order, efficiency and enterprise-friendly reform. Its 2026/27 budget places a large share of spending under economic transformation and speaks clearly about private-sector-led inclusive development, skills, digital systems, value addition and youth employment. Rwanda’s strength is that government planning is disciplined.

When the state chooses a direction, institutions tend to align.

Yet even in Rwanda, SMEs need to be made more visible as a distinct planning constituency. The private sector is celebrated, but small businesses often face familiar barriers: limited patient capital, high operating costs, a small domestic market, skills gaps and the difficulty of moving from registration to scale. Rwanda has become good at helping businesses start.

The next frontier is helping more of them grow, employ and compete regionally.

This is the regional lesson: East African governments have built many doors into entrepreneurship, but not enough staircases.

The next generation of SME policy must be a growth compact. First, governments must make affordable credit genuinely accessible. A business owner should not have to jump through hoops and barbed wire with a bank they have used for ten years just to secure working capital.

Credit guarantee schemes must be scaled, simplified and linked to cash-flow lending, invoice financing and sector-specific growth funds.

Second, governments must pay small businesses on time. Late payment is silent economic sabotage. When a public institution or large corporation delays payment to a small supplier, it is not merely holding an invoice. It is holding salaries, rent, school fees, loan repayments and the next stage of growth.

Third, procurement must become a deliberate SME growth tool. Not symbolic quotas hidden behind complex portals, but transparent, prompt-paying opportunities linked to quality standards, mentorship and market access. Small firms grow when they can see demand ahead of them.

Fourth, tax authorities must redesign their relationship with SMEs. Compliance should feel like a pathway into opportunity, not an ambush. A formal business should receive faster services, access to credit records, procurement eligibility and protection from arbitrary enforcement.

Fifth, every major public investment should include an SME participation plan. Roads should create space for local logistics, catering, repair and maintenance firms. Health investments should strengthen local suppliers, labs, cleaners, med-tech providers and digital health innovators. Digital transformation should contract local developers, creatives and technology firms, not only large foreign vendors.

The problems East African governments face today cannot be solved by government alone.

Many practical solutions already sit inside small enterprises that understand the market because they live inside it every day. They know where systems break. They are fast adopters. They understand customers. They turn frustration into improvisation, and improvisation into enterprise.

But they cannot do this while being treated as suspects.

Kenyans living and working abroad cut the amount of money sent back home by $29.1 million (about Sh3.77 billion) in the first five months of 2026, marking the first drop since 2023.

Official numbers captured by the Central Bank of Kenya show diaspora remittances fell to $2.066 billion between January and May from $2.095 billion over the same period last year, ending two consecutive years of growth.

The 1.39 percent drop suggests Kenya’s diaspora earnings are beginning to feel the strain of a more challenging global economy, including the effects of the war in the Middle East, after proving resilient through recent years of uncertainty.

The latest downturn mirrors the 2023 decline, when remittances in the review period contracted 1.8 percent as elevated global inflation, driven by post-pandemic supply chain disruptions and higher food and energy prices, eroded the purchasing power of migrant workers.

The United States, Kenya’s largest remittance source, has accounted for the biggest drag on overall inflows in the opening months of this year.

The CBK data shows Kenyans in the US slashed the cash they wired back home by 8.4 percent to $813.6 million (Sh105.36 billion) in four months to April from $888.4 million (Sh115.05 billion) a year earlier, reducing inflows by $74.8 million (about Sh9.69 billion).

The decline is significant because the US accounts for more than half of Kenya’s annual diaspora remittances, making changes in migrants’ earnings and household budgets there critical to overall inflows.

Saudi Arabia recorded the second-largest decline among Kenya’s major remittance markets in the four months-the latest period with official data on diaspora remittances by sources.

Transfers from the kingdom fell 24.8 percent to $88.7 million (Sh1.49 billion) from $117.9 million (Sh15.27 billion), cutting inflows by $29.2 million (Sh3.78 billion) as labour market adjustments and slower economic activity weighed on migrant workers.

Saudi Arabia has also been tightening labour market policies aimed at increasing the employment of citizens, creating a more competitive environment for foreign workers, including thousands of Kenyans.

Germany, which has a deal with Kenya for recruitment of skilled and semi-skilled workers, also posted weaker inflows, with remittances declining 15.5 percent to $41.3 million (Sh5.35 billion), although its relatively small share limited the impact on Kenya’s aggregate receipts.

The losses were partly offset by stronger inflows from the United Kingdom and Australia.

Remittances from the UK rebounded 26.9 percent to $133.3 million (about Sh17.26 billion), reversing last year’s decline, while Australia extended its rapid growth, with inflows rising 19.7 percent to $88 million (Sh11.4 billion).

The gains were, however, insufficient to offset the steep declines from the US and Saudi Arabia, resulting in Kenya’s first overall remittance contraction in two years.

The slowdown came as the CBK warned that the Middle East conflict was fuelling inflation and slowing global economic growth, squeezing household budgets in countries hosting large Kenyan diaspora communities.

‘The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted global supply chains and led to a sharp increase in prices and transportation costs, resulting in higher inflation and moderated global growth,’ the CBK’s Monetary Policy Committee said after leaving the benchmark lending rate unchanged at 8.75 percent on June 9.

The committee raised its global inflation forecast for 2026 to 4.4 percent from 3.8 percent, saying higher energy prices linked to the conflict had prompted major central banks to keep interest rates unchanged as they assessed risks to inflation and economic growth.

The inflationary pressures are expected to reduce disposable incomes among migrant workers, limiting the amount of money available to support relatives back home.

‘Headline inflation for the US, Eurozone and China has increased whereas the UK headline inflation has declined partly as a result of lower electricity and gas prices,’ CBK Governor Kamau Thugge told reporters in Nairobi on June 10, quoting figures for May.

The latest downturn follows a strong recovery after 2023, when remittances rebounded 19 percent in 2024 before growth slowed to 4.4 percent in 2025.

Diaspora remittances remain one of Kenya’s largest and most reliable sources of foreign exchange, supporting household consumption, education, healthcare, housing and small business investment while helping finance imports and underpin the shilling.

Unlike portfolio investment and commercial borrowing, remittances have historically proved resilient during economic downturns because they are driven largely by family obligations rather than investor sentiment.

The latest figures, however, underline that Kenya’s most dependable external income stream is becoming increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical shocks that weaken economic growth and raise living costs in countries employing large numbers of Kenyan migrants.

Park and chill is a culture that started during Covid period, following government directives to close entertainment spots to contain the contagious disease, but it stuck around and is now threatening the survival of clubs and pubs.

Revellers have kept the culture alive citing it is pocket friendly compared to clubbing and is adventurous creating an exciting feel.

The growth of the park and chill culture is however a bane to clubs and pubs with some big outlets closing due to change of consumer behaviour.

The adventure seekers seem to discover new locations with each new day to go park and have a good time with a preference for green fields with scenic views. The newest spot is the Thogoto Interchange on the southern bypass.

‘Apart from the natural scenery, this is very pocket friendly. I can get a bottle of Captain Morgan for Sh1,500 in a liquor store and I am sorted. That would have cost me about Sh2,500 in a club,’ said Kevin Momanyi, a reveller at the Thogoto intersection.

Clubs have to factor the overhead costs associated with rent, labour, furniture, fittings, electricity and water in their pricing making their prices incomparable to liquor stores and supermarkets which seem to be thriving as consumer habits change.

In Gikambura, the nearest town to the interchange, there are several liquor shops which are stocked with expensive brands signalling to consumers being outsiders rather than the local residents.

In an interview with Business Daily, the owner of the recently closed Kentwood Address Runda on Kiambu Road, Alex Ndung’u, disclosed he was making a strategic exit from the club business due to trends he was observing in the market.

Mr Ndung’u noted clubs were being forced to create spectacles at great cost to lure patrons with some turning to hiring seat fillers to give the impression of being busy and attract clients looking for a fun crowd to hang out with.

At the Thogoto Interchange, what is a bare piece of land by the wayside on weekdays comes alive from Friday evening with music blazing from tens of cars parked with doors open to late Sunday night.

Cars of all makes start trickling to this open land that has nothing special to it but a good scenic view on Friday leaving most residents of Thogoto and Gikambura baffled as to what it is that attracts this mob.

I also struggle to comprehend the lure of the place; there are no facilities forcing one to drive to Gikambura in case of a long call while short calls are made in the bushes. As the evening kicks in it gets chilly but it brings in more people with it.

‘I think it is one of those generational gap issues because unlike previous generations, we are not attached to a local pub, it’s the randomness that lures us,’ says Samuel Mwaura, a reveller at the Thogoto Interchange.

‘The scenery is good but the randomness of the place and the kind of people one gets to meet out here is refreshing,’ he adds.

Mr Mwaura is sitting on a picnic chair at the corner of the field next to his pearl white SUV whose doors are open to let the blazing music fill the air around him.

He came alone, he tells me, for this is the time he uses to plan his week ahead. He notes that unlike in a club where a patron will be encouraged to drink at this bare place he can only take what he brought along before deciding to go back home when his head is still clear.

I however note there are some entrepreneurial young men hawking canned beer. This desire for randomness is what seems to pull the generation away from clubs and pubs.

Other popular sites for park and chill include Tigoni in Limuru and Ngong Road opposite Uchumi Supermarket. For the residents of Gikambura the new trend around their village is welcome as it opens new opportunities for them.

Njuguna, he is comfortable giving me one name, is grilling nyama choma under a tent with the meat aroma pulling clients to him. He has two staff to help him indicating it is a busy afternoon for him.

There is a young man selling boiled eggs, large fried potatoes spiced with kachumbari and coffee.

Across the intersection another person has opened a fast food joint seeking to capture those visiting the parking lot, who seem to remember to carry drinks but forget about food.

The recently released Kenya Economic Survey 2026 provides a glimpse of growing demand for micro-credit access among an under-served yet economically crucial segment of society.

The demand for credit to acquire economic production assets continues to grow, and it no longer resembles what it did a decade ago, offering an illustration of why Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) firms exist and of their role in fostering financial inclusion.

Over the last two decades, I have worked at several organisations in finance-related roles, but my engagement at Watu has given me a new perspective on development finance and its imperatives.

Working for a micro-assets financier opens one to a world of social and economic resilience that you don’t get exposed to in a mainstream banking or related institution.

In a micro-assets finance environment, figures adopt a social perspective, and relationships remain the bedrock of product design.

When you begin to finance a productive asset, such as a motorcycle that generates income from the first day of ownership, you realise that the rider is not repaying the loan from a salary or savings pool. They are repaying from the earnings the asset itself generates on the go. The loan and the livelihood move together and this is a different economic logic from consumer credit.

The same applies to smartphone financing. The devices financed by players such as Watu in Kenya and across Africa and in Latin America, are working tools.

For example, a gig economy worker, say, in the ride-hailing or delivery business, derives economic functionality from a new-generation smartphone.

A Watu customer runs their business from the financed phone, managing ride-hailing jobs, processing mobile money, tracking orders and communicating with clients.

For many, financed devices are their gateway to reliable access to the digital economy. For BNPL firms, this is not an avenue to fund consumptive and lifestyle purchases; far from it, it is financing the infrastructure that enables people to build and run their economic livelihoods.

BNPL customers are unique and specific. They are self-employed entrepreneurs, most often in the informal economy, with a daily or weekly income stream. They have no credit history, no collateral and no prior banking relationship. Banks have not served them, not because they are not credit-worthy, but because the conventional credit model was not built for how they earn their money.

More than 2.5 million people depend on the boda boda sector alone for their livelihoods, contributing over Sh660 billion to Kenya’s GDP annually. These are not marginal participants in the economy. They are the true economy players.

BNPL firms like Watu structure repayments around daily cash flows, by assessing credit-worthiness against the asset’s earning potential rather than a payslip.

The BNPL loan portfolio is not just a number; it is the manifestation of financial inclusion, as each loan helps someone build a credit history for the first time, often the first step toward broader banking for the unbanked.

There can be no denying that productive-asset financiers operate in a genuinely complex capital environment. Unlike banks, BNPLs do not take deposits and instead raise capital through partnerships with local lenders, development finance institutions, and debt funds, each with its own cost structure.

Such capital-raising options carry costs that are further shaped by factors beyond BNPL firms’ control. Such costs and risks include foreign-exchange fluctuations for foreign-currency-denominated funds, interest-rate environments, and the realities of raising structured debt in frontier markets.

With such costs, BNPLs pass along as little of that cost to the customer, which is the honest context behind why margins in this sector look the way they do.

This is not an easy, quick returns business; it requires patient capital, disciplined operations and a long-term view of what it costs to deliver financial inclusion.

Kenya’s last-mile economy deserves credit infrastructure built for it.

A coalition of regional lawyers and environmental organisations has launched a fresh battle in the constitutional court, seeking to halt new luxury tourism developments in the Maasai Mara, near the Kenya-Tanzania border, arguing that approvals breached environmental laws.

The petition, filed in the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi, targets a chain of luxury facilities including the Ritz-Carlton Maasai Mara Safari Camp, Sala’s Camp and Elewana Sand River Masai Mara over their alleged presence in protected ecological zones within the Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Petitioners, including the East Africa Law Society (EALS), Natural Justice, JustAct and the Africa Centre for Peace and Human Rights, argue the developments threaten one of the world’s most important wildlife migration routes.

‘The Maasai Mara is Kenya’s most internationally recognised wildlife destination, contributing billions of dollars annually to regional tourism revenues. Allowing luxury developments to be sited within primary migration corridors based on an EIA issued in 26 days, without GPS data, without cumulative assessment, and in defiance of the reserve’s own statutory management plan, would be catastrophic for every conservation area across Kenya and the East African Community,’ says the petitioners.

The case names Marriott International, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Lazizi Mara Ltd, Narok County Government, the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), the Attorney General, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and two other luxury safari operators as respondents.

The respondents are yet to file their responses in the fresh suit.

The petitioners want the court to stop any new accommodation developments in the Maasai Mara National Reserve’s ecologically sensitive zones while the case is heard, arguing that the dispute has constitutional, ecological and cross-border implications affecting the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

‘The urgency of this matter is driven, in the first place, by the immutable biological calendar of the wildebeest migration. The annual crossing season through the Sand River corridor commences in June of each year and continues through October,’ says the petitioners.

They have also asked the court to refer the matter to the Chief Justice for the appointment of a bench of at least five judges, saying it raises substantial constitutional questions that have never been determined by Kenyan courts.

The case marks the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle over the Ritz-Carlton Maasai Mara Safari Camp, a luxury lodge operated by Lazizi Mara under the Marriott brand near the Sand River on the Kenya-Tanzania border. The Ritz-Carlton Camp has been operational since August 2025.

According to the petition, the camp was developed despite a moratorium imposed under the Maasai Mara National Reserve Management Plan 2023-2032, which suspended new accommodation developments because tourism pressure had exceeded the reserve’s ecological carrying capacity.

The petitioners argue the lodge was built within the reserve’s low-use-zone, where accommodation facilities are not permitted, and close to the Mara River Ecological Zone, which is reserved primarily for conservation.

The organisations allege that approvals issued by Narok County and Nema were unlawful, saying environmental impact assessments failed to accurately identify the site’s location within a key wildlife migration corridor and did not adequately assess ecological impacts or public participation.

They also challenge a 2024 presidential exemption to Lazizi that allegedly allowed the project to proceed despite the moratorium.

‘The Presidential exemption from the conservation moratorium was, in substance, an exemption from the environmental protection regime governing the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Section 27 declares it void,’ they say, asking the court to declare the exemption unconstitutional.

The petition further contends that scientific evidence based on 26 years of GPS tracking data from the Serengeti Biodiversity Programme shows the development sits within the core migration route used annually by about 1.36 million wildebeest crossing between Tanzania’s Serengeti and Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

It alleges the camp has disrupted wildlife movement and contributed to shifts in migration patterns.

Beyond the Ritz-Carlton development, the petition also targets Sala’s Camp and Elewana Sand River Masai Mara, alleging they similarly occupy protected ecological zones contrary to the reserve’s management plan.

The petitioners ultimately want the court to order an audit of all accommodation facilities operating within the Low Use Zone and Mara River Ecological Zone and, if found unlawful, direct restoration of the affected environment.