Category: Business Daily

Building a successful a law firm in the US as a Kenyan is less about courtroom drama than about managing the economics of survival.

The setup costs can run into millions of shillings, the career paths starting as a caregiver to pay tuition, or leveraging diaspora networks to build a client base from scratch.

Charles Wanjohi has practised law in the US for 20 years. He is the founder of Wanjohi and Muli Law Firm Plc, with offices in North Carolina, Dallas, Seattle, and Boston, with much of the work concentrated in Boston.

He studied law at the University of Nairobi and was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya in 2006. Just nine months into that admission, he travelled to the US to visit.

‘I saw this nice country, and I saw opportunities here, so I decided to stay,’ he says.

As a foreign-trained lawyer, Charles was able to sit for the New York bar exam without returning to law school. But before he could take that step, he spent several years simply working out his immigration status in the country, a period during which he did no legal work.

He was finally admitted as an attorney in New York in 2010. He then trained under another Kenyan attorney already established in the US.

‘I was lucky,’ he says. ‘One of them was gracious enough to mentor me into the practice.’

In 2013, he partnered with Mueni Muli, a Kenyan lawyer educated in the US, and together they founded their firm. ‘That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 13 years,’ he says.

Sh12.9 million capital

Starting a law firm from nothing required substantial money, yet a new firm has no credit history, which drives up the cost of commercial leases.

Add that to the cost of furniture, computers, electronics, a mandatory trust account, professional liability insurance, and ongoing marketing, and the total climbs quickly.

‘To start on your own will require somewhere between Sh6.4 million to Sh12.9 million to have a decent law firm,’ says the 46-year-old.

Even something as small as an office desk, Charles points out, could cost Sh258,000, or as much as Sh1.5 million, depending on the choices made along the way.

Their firm focused heavily on immigration law because of the goodwill they received from Kenyans already living in the US. ‘They push us every day,’ Charles says. The firm also handles commercial transactions and family law across the states where it operates.

The most rewarding moments, he says, come from reuniting families and defending clients facing deportation.

‘When you defend somebody facing deportation and they are not deported, when you represent somebody who is applying for asylum having been persecuted in their home countries and they end up getting safe haven here in the US, it’s very rewarding.’

The hardest part cuts the other way. Many of his clients lack legal status, which often means they lack steady income to pay their legal fees.

‘Payment of our legal fees is the biggest challenge,’ he admits.

Charles still holds a current practising certificate in Kenya and remains a partner in a separate firm there, Wanjohi and Muli Company Advocates, which handles matters connecting the US and Kenya.

‘At the end of the day, your comfort and your source of solace is a happy family,’ says the father of three, who spends much of his time outside work shuttling them to school and after-school activities.

Looking back at the young advocate he once was, hustling in Nairobi with little more than hope, Charles offers himself a simple message.

‘Thank you for keeping up the faith,’ he says. ‘I learned that there’s no shortcut, so you have to sweat to get what you want. And I kept that faith and here I am.’

“Cost like Sh65,000 for everything”

Gladys Mogaka is in her 40s and licensed to practise law in both Kenya and the US. She is now predominantly based in the US and the founder Law office of Gladys Mogaka Plc. As an attorney, her firm focuses on immigration law, trademarks, and copyright, and she is also quietly building a technology venture on the side. Before any of that, she was a young lawyer in Kenya.

She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Kampala International University in Uganda, graduating in 2007. She then attended the Kenya School of Law and passed her bar exam in 2009, followed by an internship at the law firm AH Malik and Company.

‘I was very ambitious,’ she says of herself back then.

A volunteer trip to deliver a speech at the United Nations about technology and the girl child changed the course of her life. There she met students pursuing their Master’s degrees in the US, and with extended family already living there, she felt encouraged to apply too.

She was accepted at Harvard, New York Law School, and Michigan State. She chose Michigan State because the school offered her a 50 percent scholarship. ‘My Master’s was very expensive,’ she says, ‘and as an international student it’s very hard for you to get student loans.’

She compressed a two-year Master’s programme into a single year, joining in January 2013 and finishing that December. To manage it, she worked nights as a caregiver while attending classes during the day. ‘I just did not have a social life,’ she says. ‘So I used to carry books to work.’

She started that caregiving job earning Sh1,000 an hour, and after being trained to administer medication to residents, her pay rose to Sh1,400 an hour. ‘I was so excited and happy,’ she recalls.

Passing a bar exam abroad tested her in ways she had not expected. She registered for the New York bar exam, a process that took about six months, and had to master a completely new body of state law stacked on top of what she already knew from Uganda, Kenya, and Michigan.

‘The nuances are so complicated,’ she says, describing how the same crime can carry a different number of legal degrees in every jurisdiction.

She sat for the exam in the summer of 2014 and waited until around November that year for her results. Her first legal job came at Ernst and Young, but she was let go a few months later when a major client required attorneys who already held their physical license.

She found steadier ground at Deloitte, working there from 2015 until she resigned in 2020, during the pandemic. ‘I knew if I put seven years in my own firm, I will make three times what they were going to pay me in seven years,’ she says of her reasoning at the time.

While still employed at Deloitte, Gladys quietly registered her own law firm in 2018. She built it on the side at first, driven partly by the steady stream of immigration questions Kenyans around her kept asking.

Registering a law firm in the US, she explains, involves holding a valid licence, choosing a legal structure such as an LLC, and paying processing fees. ‘It’s not a lot,’ she says. ‘It’s not more than like Sh65,000 for everything.’

Life in the US was not free of prejudice. She recalls being mistaken for a client rather than the attorney during courthouse security checks, and once being asked repeatedly for an interpreter badge instead of being recognised as the lawyer standing in front of a judge.

‘I am a lawyer,’ she remembers telling the court official. ‘And she kept asking me, whose lawyer are you interpreting for?’ Eventually she pulled out her badge and set it down firmly in front of the woman. ‘I had to let my work speak for me,’ Gladys says. ‘On so many occasions, my work has spoken for me.’

Today she mentors six students who dream of becoming lawyers, and two Kenyan attorneys have reached out to her directly for guidance on relocating to the US. ‘That right there, that is what I call successful,’ she says. ‘We have Black girls who have seen me, and they want to be like me.’

“It boils down to two things…”

While Gladys built her law firm through sheer resilience, starting from the very bottom of the ladder in New York and Michigan, Laban Opande took a different route. He bet on the Kenyans in the diaspora who eventually gave him a steady stream of clients.

Laban has run a law firm in the US for 18 years, despite never studying law in Kenya.

He did environmental science as his first degree, with a minor in computer science. He moved to the US immediately after high school.

He got a job at AIG, the insurance and financial group’s IT department, which helped pay 90 percent of his tuition at the University of Phoenix while pursuing his MBA.

Only after that did he attend the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, graduating in 2007. ‘I was pretty much in school for about 11 years. I’d always admired the likes of James Orengo and Paul Muite,’ says Laban, now in his 50s.

After law school, Laban interned with a friend named Solomon Musim, who guided him through his bar admission. The two eventually joined forces permanently in 2009, forming what became the O’Connor Law Firm.

Asked what it takes to open a law firm as a foreigner in the US, Laban does not pretend there is a formula.

‘But it boils down to two things. One, it’s just like any other business. You must have business acumen. Then the second one is being a good lawyer. You cannot be a businessman running after money, and you are not delivering for your clients.’

On getting the business running, Laban credits his close ties to the Kenyan community in the US.

‘When I started practising, there were not many Kenyan lawyers in the US,’ he says. ‘A majority of African lawyers were Nigerian.’

That gave him a competitive edge. His familiarity within the small Kenyan community provided an early foundation of trust and helped him build his client base.

‘It formed the foundation for me in terms of client buildup. But then you still have to deliver. You cannot take it for granted that people know you and then you don’t do the job,’ says the lawyer of his Houston-based firm, with a smaller Dallas office, which he runs with a Kenyan partner, other attorneys and support staff.

He started representing Kenyans including families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in 2019.

‘That has been probably the most fulfilling case,’ he says, describing how he had to explain Kenyan cultural realities, including polygamous marriages, in an American legal system built around a single spouse.

‘American law does not recognise some of the things like polygamy,’ he says. ‘We had to manoeuvre through all those and figure out how you are able to capture the Kenyan essence in the American law and still be able to represent them well.’

Besides running his law firm, Laban juggles several other entrepreneurial ventures.

He once ran a restaurant in Houston before selling it, and he still runs a real estate business on the side. ‘I’m a typical Kenyan,’ he laughs.

‘You have to have a side gig,’ says Laban, who leads the Kenya US Bar Association, with 250 Kenyan-American lawyers and law students.

Nearly two decades ago, he helped found Uhuru Soccer, a team that has become a family affair, with the children of its original players now taking to the pitch alongside their parents.

The number of established Primary Care Networks (PCNs) across Kenya’s 47 counties increased by 22 percent to 277 in the 2025/26 financial year, up from 227 the previous year, as counties expand a system designed to bring services closer to communities.

PCNs bring together health facilities and community-level services within a defined area to improve the coordination of care, referrals and access to essential services. They are intended to make primary healthcare facilities the first point of contact for most routine health needs, allowing patients to receive care closer to home while easing pressure on higher-level hospitals.

Dr Mercy Mwangangi, Chief Executive Officer of the Social Health Authority (SHA), said that the PCNs handle the bulk of the country’s routine health needs; hence, investing at this level is very critical.

‘About 70 percent of health needs in the country are met at the primary healthcare level. Many of the conditions we commonly suffer from, such as flu, colds, and diarrhoea are handled at the primary healthcare level,’ Dr Mwangangi said yesterday during a Media Town Hall ahead of the Kenya Health Summit next week.

‘For every shilling invested in primary healthcare, you can recoup nine shillings. That is the return on investment of primary healthcare,’ she added.

According to SHA data, over the past 18 months, the government has invested Sh27 billion in primary healthcare compared with Sh1.8 billion invested by the previous government.

The expansion is part of the counties’ broader efforts to strengthen primary healthcare and improve access to services.

The Council of Governors’ Maarifa Centre documented 23 county innovations and best practices on PCNs from 15 counties, covering integrated service delivery, community health systems, referral coordination, digital health and health workforce strengthening.

The growth of the networks comes as the government seeks to remove financial barriers to accessing care at lower levels of the health system.

Speaking at the same event, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said that primary healthcare at Level Two, Level Three and part of Level Four facilities is free to Kenyans, while acknowledging that some facilities continue to charge patients despite the policy.

‘A Kenyan should be able to walk into a facility, receive treatment and walk out without being charged,’ Mr Duale said, adding that the policy applies whether a facility is faith-based, county-run, private or church-based.

‘I agree that there are challenges, including cases where some facilities still attempt to charge patients.’

Mr Duale said the government has allocated Sh19 billion in the current financial year to fund treatment for Kenyans accessing dispensaries, health facilities and some Level Four services.

‘Therefore, charging a Kenyan for these services is a criminal offence, regardless of the type of facility,’ he said.

The Treasury borrowed Sh207.7 billion to pay salaries, debt repayments and other recurrent expenditure in the year ended June, in continued breach of the public finance management law.

The draft 2026 Budget Review and Outlook Paper (BROP) shows the President William Ruto administration borrowed Sh983.7 billion in the financial year 2025/26.

The Treasury, however, says that only Sh776 billion was spent on development, leaving Sh207.7 billion to fund recurrent expenditure.

The disclosure means more than one in every five shillings borrowed in the year to June did not go into building roads, dams, schools, hospitals or other long-term assets, but instead financed the ordinary cost of running government.

Kenya faces severe fiscal pressures and cash constraints driven by high debt-servicing costs and below-target revenue performance, prompting the Treasury to tap loans for recurrent spending.

The Treasury’s figures show that 78.9 percent of borrowing financed development expenditure while 21.1 percent financed recurrent expenditure, highlighting the gap between Kenya’s legal borrowing rules and actual budget financing.

Section 15(2)(c) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 requires that national government borrowing should, over the medium term, be used only for development expenditure and not recurrent expenditure.

The Treasury has acknowledged the breach and pledged full adherence in future budgets.

‘Over the medium term, the government will ensure adherence to the fiscal responsibility principles,’ Treasury officials wrote in the review paper.

The continued breach contrasts with President Ruto’s pledge shortly after taking office in September 2022 that borrowing would no longer be used to keep the government running and meet obligations that recur every year.

‘The government should never borrow to finance recurrent expenditure. It is not right, it is not prudent, and it is not sustainable. It is simply wrong. We must bring ourselves and our country to sanity,’ the President said at the time, adding that his administration would restore fiscal discipline over time.

‘Over the next three years, we must reverse this and go back to a situation where the government contributes to the national savings effort by keeping recurrent expenditure below revenue levels.’

The latest figures suggest progress toward that goal, but they also reveal that the government remains unable to fully finance its recurrent budget from tax revenue and other ordinary income.

The Treasury data shows that Kenya has gradually reduced the share of borrowing used for recurrent expenditure.

In the financial year 2023/24, the government borrowed Sh766.4 billion but more than half, or Sh415.7 billion, financed recurrent expenditure — making that year one of the clearest examples of debt funding government consumption.

In the financial year 2024/25, borrowing rose to Sh854.5 billion, of which Sh604.1 billion went to development and Sh250.4 billion to recurrent spending, lifting the development share to 70.7 percent.

Last financial year marked a further improvement, but the remaining Sh207.7 billion still represents a substantial reliance on debt to finance consumption rather than investment, a practice economists have long argued weakens future economic growth.

The Treasury has repeatedly defended the government’s borrowing programme by arguing that debt is increasingly being directed toward infrastructure and productive investment rather than recurrent expenditure.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has previously said the government was seeking to restore fiscal discipline and improve compliance with the Public Finance Management Act after years of heavy borrowing and rising debt servicing costs.

Borrowing for development creates assets such as roads that can raise future productivity and tax revenues, while borrowing for recurrent expenditure leaves taxpayers servicing debt long after the money has been spent.

Kenya’s recurrent expenditure-which hit nearly Sh3.29 trillion in the year to June from Sh2.95 trillion a year earlier – includes wages for public servants, pensions, debt interest payments, transfers to State agencies and county governments, and operations and maintenance costs across ministries and departments.

Debt servicing has become the single-largest pressure on the recurrent budget, prompting the government to devote an increasing share of revenue to interest and principal repayments.

The BROP report also shows that overall development expenditure has risen steadily, strengthening the Treasury’s argument that a larger share of public spending is being directed toward investment.

Development expenditure increased from Sh493.66 billion in the financial year 2022/23 to Sh546.39 billion in the financial year 2023/24, before rising to Sh582.94 billion in the financial year 2024/25.

The Treasury estimates that development expenditure reached a provisional Sh731.54 billion in the financial year 2025/26, an increase from the previous year and the highest level in the four years of President Ruto’s administration.

However, officials acknowledged that the government still failed to meet its own development spending target.

‘Development expenditure amounted to Sh731.5 billion against a target of Sh771.0 billion, translating to an under-spending of Sh39.5 billion. This variance was largely driven by lower-than-projected absorption in development projects, which underperformed by Sh41.5 billion,’ Treasury officials wrote in the draft BROP.

The missed target means the government borrowed nearly Sh984 billion while failing to spend all the development funds it had planned, raising fresh questions about project implementation and budget execution.

The Treasury has been pursuing a fiscal consolidation programme aimed at reducing the budget deficit and slowing the pace of debt accumulation through higher revenue collection and tighter control of expenditure.

However, the review paper indicates that ordinary revenues such as taxes, dividends from government-owned entities and charges on government services were still not sufficient to cover all recurrent obligations, requiring the government to use borrowed funds to bridge the financing gap.

The continued breach of the borrowing rule is likely to raise questions about the credibility of the government’s fiscal consolidation strategy, especially as Kenya seeks to reassure lenders such as the IMF and investors that public debt is funding productive investment.

The Treasury’s promise that future borrowing will fully comply with the PFM Act means the government would need to eliminate the practice of financing recurrent expenditure with debt, a target that has remained elusive for years.

Lending to households and businesses by commercial banks hit a 28-month high in June 2026 as lenders continued to pass on the gains of cheaper credit to their clients, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said.

The private sector lending performance in June and July 2026 marks the first double-digit growth since February 2024.

‘Growth in commercial banks’ lending to the private sector remained strong at 10.2 percent in July 2026 and 10.6 percent in June 2026 compared to a contraction of 2.9 percent in January 2025,’ the CBK said in a statement.

‘Growth in credit to key sectors of the economy, particularly trade, building and construction, agriculture and consumer durables, remained strong, reflecting improved demand for credit in line with the decline in lending interest rates.’

The average lending rate by commercial banks stood at 14.3 percent in July 2026, falling from 14.4 percent in June and 17.2 percent in November 2024.

The drop in commercial bank interest rates has continued even as the CBK on Tuesday kept its key lending rate unchanged for a third straight monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting at 8.75 percent.

The CBK had been cutting its indicative lending rate since August 2024, targeting to spur credit growth. The apex bank cut its reference rate from a high of 13 percent to the current 8.75 percent in February 2026, before the onset of the new Middle East conflict.

Uncertainty about the US-Israel war against Iran has, however, left the CBK at a crossroads as it assesses potential shifts in commodity prices.

The country’s inflation edged up slightly to 6.5 percent in July, up from 6.4 percent in June, due to higher transportation costs.

CBK expects the inflation rate to hold within the target band of 2.5 to 7.5 percent, assuming a near-term de-escalation of the Middle East conflict, which has resulted in a jump in domestic prices for petroleum products.

Surveys on CEOs and markets have continued to show sustained optimism about business activity and economic growth prospects for the next 12 months even as they flag elevated global uncertainties.

The Kenya shilling has remained stable owing to adequate official reserves buffers even as the current account deficit widens because of the higher importation bill accompanying steeper fuel prices and a drop in diaspora remittances.

The banking sector has continued to post improvement in asset quality with the ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans falling to 14.6 percent in July 2026 from 15.4 percent in April and 17.6 percent in August last year.

The CBK has subsequently deemed its current monetary policy stance as appropriate in continuing to anchor both growth and inflation expectations.

‘Having considered these developments, the Committee concluded that the current monetary policy stance, with the Central Bank Rate unchanged at 8.75 percent, remains appropriate to ensure that inflation expectations remain anchored within the target range, and the exchange rate remains stable,’ CBK added.

The decision by the CBK to retain its benchmark lending rate reflects the widespread expectation that a lull in the Middle East conflict would hold.

Last week, commercial banks said they expected a hold on the key rate as inflation continued to run above the midpoint target of five percent, but below the ceiling of 7.5 percent.

Once a deal is signed, a company’s operations must honour its promise and, ideally, exceed it. That is how clients are both acquired and retained. Knowing that, what then does it take to deliver the desired outputs consistently and at scale? The answer lies in three interconnected pillars: people, processes, and systems.

And it starts with people. At the core of operational excellence are people: It is the people who define the culture of an organisation without the right fit, there is no way to achieve your strategic goals.

The right people that are honest with each other and with their clients; have the expertise that will deliver the promise, and are agile and available to do what is right for the organisation whenever called upon, even if it stretches beyond their day to day.

They also understand that accountability is not confined to individual roles, and that everyone has a stake in the customer experience. A culture where employees take ownership and continuously improve is far more likely to deliver consistent results than one that relies solely on talent.

The next pillar is processes. We have all witnessed organisations that have done extremely well when their founder is present. However, as soon as the vision bearer leaves the scene, the organisation fizzles away. The converse are organisations that have been in existence for hundreds of years and transcend all challenges along the way, even when the leadership changes.

Sometimes the changes are so smooth and subtle that the external world hardly notices. Indeed, well-established structures, go a long way in establishing process and more importantly documented process.

Documenting how work is done removes dependence on institutional memory, shortens onboarding for new employees and creates consistency across teams and locations. It also allows for review and the establishment of root causes whenever something goes wrong. Instead of assigning blame, organisations can identify where the process failed and refine it to prevent similar issues in future. Over time, this creates a culture of continuous improvement rather than reactive problem-solving.

The third pillar of operational excellence involves systems. The right systems transform good intentions into measurable outcomes. A leadership team that knows where it wants to go also needs a firm grasp of its data and the ability to analyse it to identify areas of strength, improvement and growth.

The right systems make this visibility possible, enabling proper documentation of processes and empowering people to make the right decisions at the right time. They also automate repetitive tasks, reduce the risk of human error and provide real-time insights that allow leaders to respond quickly when performance begins to drift. The nature of those systems will vary by organisation, but the principle is universal: without them, decisions are made on instinct rather than insight.

Finally, the question for every leader is whether they are intentional enough to build operational excellence. Operational excellence does not happen by accident, nor is it achieved through one-off initiatives. It requires sustained investment in people, disciplined processes and systems that reinforce both.

This is with the clear understanding that operational excellence ultimately translates into a positive customer experience. When organisations consistently deliver on their promises, customers notice. Trust grows, relationships deepen and the business earns the reputation that every sales team hopes to make.

The counties’ health workforce shrank 26 percent in the financial year 2025/26, leaving the devolved governments scrambling to replace tens of thousands of frontline workers as donor-funded programmes wind down.

New disclosures show that healthcare workforce fell to 98,907 from 149,447 the previous year, a loss of 50,540 workers, according to the 2026 State of Devolution Address.

Most of the drop, about 41,000 workers, is attributed to the termination of US government programmes, including 28,600 frontline healthcare workers.

The figures exclude workers in national referral hospitals, as well as those in faith-based and private facilities.

The overall reduction also reflects the transfer of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital from the county to the national government.

‘For the period under review, the total health workforce across all 47 counties was 98,907, excluding those in national referral, faith-based, and private hospitals. This presents a 26 percent decline,’ said the Council of Governors in the report.

The staffing shock followed the US decision in January 2025 to pause foreign development assistance for 90 days and review its programmes. The move initially disrupted PEPFAR-supported services in Kenya, with UNAids reporting that health workers in affected facilities were instructed to stop work, while staff of implementing partners were sent on leave.

Although a subsequent waiver allowed lifesaving HIV treatment to continue, the disruption persisted. By March 2025, UNAids reported that doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists, pharmacists and community health workers supported by US programmes had been affected, alongside disruptions to some HIV treatment and community services.

The cuts were later fixed through a July 2025 US rescissions law that cancelled Sh1.2 trillion previously approved global foreign aid, while USAid was dismantled.

The changes marked a significant shift in the way US health assistance is delivered, including its long-standing support for Kenya’s HIV response.

In December 2025, Kenya and the US signed a five-year Health Framework for Cooperation covering HIV and other health priorities, signalling a move towards a new model of health cooperation and greater co-investment between the two countries.

The shift in US health financing now leaves counties facing a greater share of the cost of maintaining the workforce. County health allocations increased by 11.7 percent to about Sh154.58 billion in 2025/26, from Sh137.57 billion the previous year.

The Council of Governors said counties have responded by recruiting clinical officers, laboratory technicians, and nurses to fill the gaps. In the year under review, 498 doctors were released for postgraduate training, while 40 percent of the 681 health workers who had been studying in the previous year returned to work.

A parliamentary committee wants the competition watchdog to ensure that the proposed acquisition of British multinational Diageo’s stake in East African Breweries PLC (EABL) by Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings does not undermine market competition or prejudice the interests of local farmers, distributors, employees and consumers.

The Finance and National Planning Committee chaired by Molo MP Kuria Kimani has asked the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) to ensure binding safeguards for farmers and competitors in the proposed Diageo-Asahi deal.

Speaking at a meeting with the CAK on the proposed sale, the committee demanded to know whether the transaction has specific safeguards to protect stakeholders following the ownership transition.

‘We must ensure that farmers, distributors and employees are not left vulnerable once this transaction is concluded. These protections must be in place before any merger,’ Mr Kimani said.

‘The transaction must be backed by enforceable contractual commitments.”

Mr Kimani also directed CAK to submit a Kenya-specific valuation of the transaction and documentary evidence of the proposed stakeholder safeguards within seven days.

Diageo and Asahi Holdings agreed the sale of the 65 percent stake in EABL for a consideration of $2.354 billion (Sh304.6 billion) in December 2025.

Asahi also agreed to purchase Diageo’s 53.68 percent holding in spirits producer and importer UDV Kenya for $646 million (Sh83.6 billion), taking the total size of the deal to Sh388.2 billion.

Asahi aims to leverage EABL’s strong brand portfolio and production facilities to expand its presence in East Africa while EABL looks to maintain its operations and continue to grow under Asahi’s stewardship.

While responding to Mr Kimani’s concerns, CAK director-general David Kemei told MPs that existing contracts with sorghum and millet farmers, distributors, and employees would remain binding and fully honoured, adding that the competition watchdog will continuously monitor compliance with all merger conditions.

‘We have proposed a key condition requiring the merged entity to reserve at least 20 percent of shelf space in major retail outlets for competing brands to safeguard fair competition and consumer choice,’ Mr Kemei said.

Committee members sought clarification on measures that are in place to prevent smaller beverage manufacturers from being edged out of the retail market.

The committee further sought to know the financial safeguards accompanying the transaction.

Mr Kemei said Asahi and EABL would be required to establish a dedicated financial reserve equivalent to four percent of the total transaction value to cover third-party liabilities and legal claims arising from the sale.

Most new residential developments have children squeezing into a small play area, taking turns on a slide or running around the little space left between the parking bays and apartment blocks. A few metres away, there are rows of cars that occupy much of the compound, while balconies rise several floors above them.

These developments tick nearly every box for modern urban living: security, a convenient location, a swimming pool, gym, parking and sometimes even a rooftop lounge. But when it comes to one of the simplest needs for a family-space for children to play-the offering can be limited.

David Murugi, an architect, explains that rising land prices have put pressure on developers to maximise the number of saleable units. These spaces, he says, are now competing directly with apartments, parking and other revenue-generating amenities such as gyms and swimming pools.

‘In most of the high-density areas, every square metre has an economic value. So any additional space will be viewed by a developer as potential for another apartment block as opposed to a children’s playground,’ he says.

The architect argues that children’s spaces were historically incorporated more naturally into estate planning.

‘The challenge is that we are designing vertically, but children still need horizontal spaces where they can run, explore and interact.’

Additionally, the architect says the growth in car ownership has also increased pressure on residential developments to provide parking.

The architect observes that children’s needs are currently overlooked in housing decisions.

‘These residential developments have been primarily marketed around things adults consider when buying a home like the number of bedrooms, parking, security, swimming pools, gyms, views and finishes. Children’s needs have then become secondary, even though families are among the main occupants.’

The pressure to maximise land use is becoming more pronounced as property values rise in some of Nairobi’s traditionally low-density neighbourhoods. For instance, land prices in Karen and Lang’ata have recorded some of the fastest growth among Nairobi suburbs and satellite towns this year. This follows a policy change that allowed high-rise developments in sections of the estates.

According to HassConsult, a real estate consultancy that tracks rents and property sales, the price of an acre in Karen rose by 10 per cent to Sh79.5 million, while Lang’ata recorded a 9.8 per cent growth to Sh94.7 million.

The consultancy attributed the increase to the Nairobi City County Development Control Policy 2026, which changed zoning rules to allow higher-density residential developments in designated areas.

The shift towards higher-density construction is likely to further intensify the competition for communal space within residential developments, as developers seek to accommodate more units on expensive land.

Read: Give your children their special space in the garden

Ben Okoth, a real estate developer, says the cost aspect determines how much of a site can be dedicated to housing and how much can be set aside for shared amenities.

Depending on zoning regulations, plot size, allowable building height, setbacks, parking requirements and other planning considerations, a single parcel can accommodate dozens or even hundreds of apartments.

‘If you take 10 or 20 per cent of a site and dedicate it to a playground, that is land you cannot use for another block or additional units. The question here is not what the playground costs to construct because you also have to consider the opportunity cost of the land. In some locations, that can be important.’

Consequently, Mr Okoth says that in family-oriented developments, children’s facilities can help differentiate a project from competing properties and influence the decisions of buyers and tenants.

‘If you are building for families, the presence of a proper children’s play area can be a selling point. What we see in these cases is that parents are also buying the environment in which their children will grow. A development that offers safe and usable outdoor space can have that advantage over one that does not.’

He continues to say that a family buying a three or four-bedroom apartment may attach greater importance to children’s facilities than a young professional buying a one-bedroom unit.

‘Not every buyer is willing to pay more simply because a development has a bigger playground. But for a family, the availability of a safe play area can influence the overall value they attach to a property. It can make the difference between choosing one development over another, even if the price is similar.’

At the same time, developers have to prioritise amenities based on what attracts buyers while still considering construction, maintenance and land costs. Parking, for example, can be difficult to reduce because it is closely linked to the functionality of a development.

‘Every amenity has to be looked at in terms of the value it creates. The strongest amenities are those that helps the development attract and retain the target buyer.’

‘The industry is not saying that children do not need space. The reality is that we are trying to accommodate more people on expensive land. For us the solution is to design recreational spaces intelligently so that they are still useful without making the entire project financially unviable,’ Mr Okoth adds.

The developer says that if buyers begin to consistently demonstrate that they are willing to pay a premium for developments with quality children’s facilities, developers will respond to that demand. Ultimately, developers build what the market values, within the limits of planning regulations and project economics.

For Gerry Nyaori, a father of three, finding a home that meets the needs of his family has meant making a compromise on outdoor space for his children.

Mr Nyaori, whose youngest child is five, has lived in Nairobi for years and moved houses a number of times with his family.

He says his previous rental home had a compound, but much of the available outdoor space was taken up by parking, leaving little room for the children to play.

‘Last year, we moved to a four-bedroom apartment in Kileleshwa that was sold to us at Sh34 million. The home ticks most of the boxes, especially for my wife. All the four bedrooms are en-suite, the property has a servant’s quarter, parking space for nearly three cars and a backyard,’ he says.

However, Mr Nyaori says that the residential development does not have a large playground for children. Although there is a designated children’s area, Mr Nyaori says it is more suited for younger children, particularly those aged four and below.

‘My older children need more space for different forms of recreation. Children grow, and they need more space to run around and play. I don’t see how my 12-year-old son would enjoy playing with swings,’ he says.

Mr Nyaori adds that this limitation means the family has to incur additional costs to take the children elsewhere for activities, whether to a park or another facility with more room.

‘The house had almost everything we wanted. For us as parents, it ticked most of the boxes, so we were not going to give up the house simply because it did not have a bigger children’s play area,’ he says.

Africa stands at a defining moment in the future of trade. For years, the debate has focused on access to capital, regulatory complexity and the cost of doing business across borders. Those issues still matter. But the bigger question now is this: how does trade move?

If Africa is to unlock the full potential of intra-African commerce, industrial growth and SME participation, it must digitise not just transactions, but the trade ecosystem itself.

According to recent trade assessments by Afreximbank and African Development Bank, Africa still faces an estimated annual trade finance gap, currently estimated by the African Trade Report 2025 to be $100 billion, even as trade becomes more central to the continent’s growth story.

Trade finance in Africa is still slowed by structural friction. Too many transactions remain trapped in paper-heavy workflows, fragmented verification systems and manual handoffs between banks, customs agencies, logistics providers, shipping lines and corporate customers. These are not minor inefficiencies.

They lengthen turnaround times, raise operating costs, delay access to working capital and make trade less accessible, especially for micro, small and medium enterprises. The answer is not simply more financing. It is better trade infrastructure.

Digitisation goes to the heart of that problem. In trade finance, the biggest cost drivers are often not the products themselves, but the friction around them: onboarding, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), document preparation, compliance checks, financing approvals, reconciliation and dispute resolution. In manual environments, every stage demands repeated validation, physical document movement and significant human intervention. The result is limited visibility, repeated follow-ups and avoidable delays.

By contrast, digital onboarding, automated KYC, electronic documentation and workflow-based processing reduce manual touchpoints and shorten the transaction lifecycle. For clients, that means faster access to goods and funding. For financial institutions, it means lower cost-to-serve and better client experience.

But Africa’s opportunity is bigger than converting paper into PDFs.

The real shift is from digitised institutions to connected trade ecosystems. Trade finance is not a single-bank process; it is an interconnected chain involving ports, customs, insurers, transporters, buyers, sellers and regulators. If one part of that chain stays manual while the rest modernises, the benefits are diluted. That is why interoperability is becoming one of the defining themes of global digital trade.

The AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Trade stresses harmonised rules, common standards and interoperable systems, while the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Digital Standards Initiative argues that the future lies in trusted, interoperable data flows rather than isolated digital platforms.

Africa is well positioned to move in that direction because it still has the chance to build new trade rails without inheriting the inefficiencies of older systems. The legal foundation for that shift is strengthening too.

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) gives legal recognition to documents such as bills of lading, promissory notes and warehouse receipts, while the ICC has described MLETR as a critical enabler of digital trade and trade finance because, without legal certainty, technology alone cannot replace paper.

That legal shift matters because some of the most important documents in trade finance are also the most paper dependent. The bill of lading is the clearest example. As long as it remains tied to physical transfer, trade finance will remain slower and more expensive than it should be. That is why the push toward electronic bills of lading (eBLs) matters so much.

The economic case for Africa to move faster is already visible. Africa’s total merchandise trade reached $1.5 trillion in 2024, while intra-African trade rose to $220.3 billion. UNCTAD’s Global Trade Update identified Africa as one of the strongest performing regions in global trade growth in 2025, with imports growing by 10 percent and exports by 6 percent.

The point is simple: Africa is already trading at scale. Digitisation is not about creating trade where none exists; it is about helping the continent trade better, faster and more competitively.

Other markets are already proving the point. The UK government has said its legal recognition of electronic trade documents could reduce processing times by up to 75 percent and generate £1.14 billion for the UK economy over the next decade. In Europe, the European Commission says the EU is the global leader in digitally deliverable services, valued pound 1.7 trillion in 2024, while Eurostat reported pound 1.568 trillion in extra-EU services exports and a pound 194 billion trade surplus in the same year.

The East African corridor shows both Africa’s trade momentum and the urgency of deeper reform. According to the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), the Port of Mombasa handled a record 45.45 million metric tons of cargo in 2025, while container throughput reached 2.11 million TEUs and transit cargo grew by19.5 percent to 15.88 million tonnes.

These record volumes demonstrate the corridor’s increasing strategic importance, but also reinforce the need for greater digital integration, faster cargo visibility and more seamless cross-border trade processes.

Yet stronger volumes have not eliminated corridor friction. According to regional corridor performance assessments by the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA) and TradeMark Africa, transit times from Mombasa to Malaba remain around 76-80 hours, compared with the corridor target of 36-48 hours, while cargo encounters 22-27 road enforcement checkpoints along the route. These operational inefficiencies reinforce the case for greater digital integration across the trade ecosystem.

This is why trade digitisation matters: alongside reforms in customs, visibility and coordination, Pan-African Payment and Settlement System can reduce payment costs and complexity by enabling cross-border settlement in local currencies.

Kenya has checked all the right boxes in global climate circles in recent years. Nairobi’s selection as the Eastern and Southern Africa regional hub for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) cements Kenya’s reputation as the green finance capital of Africa.

However, proximity to billions does not automatically translate into flowing funds. If domestic entities lack the technical capacity to clear the bureaucratic hurdles of multilateral institutions, the regional office risks serving as little more than a scenic savannah backdrop for workshops.

To transform this diplomatic success into real-world impact, Kenyan and international stakeholders must establish dedicated climate finance readiness accelerators.

Multilateral funds like the GCF operate with stringent compliance, complex risk assessments and rigorous monitoring standards.

The landscape of successful climate applications is dominated by international NGOs, multinational development banks and global consulting firms. Local actors are locked out.

The bottlenecks cited are a lack of the specialised legal, financial and administrative machinery required to achieve accreditation or draft bankable proposals.

Multilateral agencies struggle with local context, resulting in well-funded projects that look excellent on paper but fail to deliver lasting benefits on the ground. Domestic NGOs, local enterprises and county-level programmes possess the trust and grassroots insights needed to build resilient community structures.

What they lack is the institutional architecture to manage multimillion-dollar international grants and concessionary loans. Bridging this is a long overdue economic and ecological adjustment.

Fortunately, milestone programmes like the Financing Locally Led Climate Action (FLLoCA), pioneered by the government in partnership with the World Bank, prove that the foundation for grassroots project management is active across the 47 counties. FLLoCA builds capacity for county technical teams, empowers leaders, coordinates civil society and establishes climate data infrastructure.

A dedicated climate finance readiness accelerator would serve as this vital institutional bridge. Rather than relying on sporadic training workshops, it must operate as a permanent, high-intensity incubator for domestic climate projects.

The Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA) model, funded by the UK, operates effectively in Colombia, South Africa and Vietnam. In these nations, the accelerator acts as a mediator, taking low-carbon entrepreneurs and matching them with legal and financial experts to de-risk projects.

This has unlocked over $530 million in investments and closed dozens of clean market deals. By embedding a similar permanent accelerator in Nairobi, Kenya can build directly on FLLoCA’s ground-level data to create a swift pipeline directly into the GCF’s Private Sector Facility.