Category: Business Daily

More firms have locked horns over lucrative State tenders, with formally filed disputes topping Sh107.45 billion in the year to June 2025, signalling stiff competition and rising scrutiny over public procurement.

Disclosures by the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) show the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board–which is a quasi-judicial body that presides over public procurement disputes– handled 161 cases during the review period.

During the year, 411 procuring entities reported 25,994 contract awards valued Sh217.45 billion. This means the value of disputed contracts was nearly half (49.4 percent).

The number of disputes and the amount of money involved highlight how firms are aggressively contesting procurement outcomes in a bid to secure a share of public spending, which remains one of the largest sources of business for contractors across sectors including construction, health supplies and infrastructure.

‘During the period, the review board handled a total dispute value of Sh107.45 billion, reflecting a high level of procurement contestation, meaning that numerous results of procurement proceedings are being challenged due to concerns about fairness, compliance, or transparency,’ said PPRA.

The figure points to a procurement landscape where firms bidding for State contracts are willing to challenge outcomes they deem irregular in a challenging economic environment where businesses view government tenders as a stable revenue stream.

Data in the report shows dozens of cases were filed before the review board, with outcomes ranging from annulment of awards to orders for fresh evaluations, signalling frequent disagreements between procuring entities and bidders.

Nearly half of the procurement disputes were upheld, with 80 cases going in favour of the complainants, indicating that many of the complaints presented to the review board were deemed to be valid.

However, 66 cases were dismissed for lacking merit or sufficient evidence, while 15 were withdrawn after parties reached mutual agreements.

PPRA said the majority (108) of the public procurement disputes across various categories of procuring originated from State Corporations and Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies (SAGAs), indicating a significant concentration of procurement issues within this category.

‘This distribution highlights a trend where a substantial majority of procurement disputes are concentrated in larger or more complex government institutions, particularly State Corporations and SAGAs, potentially due to the volume and value of procurement activities they undertake,’ said PPRA.

The PPRA links the disputes to several factors, including non-compliance with procurement regulations, weak tender documentation and procedural lapses by procuring entities. In some cases, bidders challenged unclear specifications or evaluation criteria, while others cited lack of transparency in the award process.

‘The volume of disputes and the value in the matters resolved by the board demonstrates its critical role as a key institution in safeguarding public resources and upholding public confidence in the public procurement system,’ said PPRA.

The findings come amid concerns about transparency in public procurement, with the report also flagging inconsistencies in disclosure of contract awards and compliance with reporting requirements by procuring entities.

PPRA data showed that 57 percent, or 14,819 of 25,994 State contracts awarded in the year ending June 2025 lacked disclosure of beneficial ownership, raising concerns about hidden interests in the allocation of lucrative public contracts.

Read: Tycoons in half of tenders keep names, office secret

The findings point to persistent opacity among suppliers doing business with the State, undermining reforms introduced over the past five years to curb corruption, conflicts of interest and illicit financial flows in public procurement.

Firms are increasingly resorting to legal redress to protect commercial interests, even as regulators push for stricter adherence to procurement rules. Firms seeking appeal on the tender processes paid PPRA Sh10.65 million during the review period.

The PPRA report showed procuring entities flouted several rules, including failing to disclose beneficial owners, failure to publish complete contract information, delays in reporting and inaccurate data entries on the procurement portal.

PPRA said an analysis of data from the 2016/2017 to 2024/2025 financial years revealed an increase in the use of the Public Procurement Information Portal (PPIP) for tender postings and contract publications.

However, the watchdog said while the data reflects growing adoption of the PPIP, there is an inconsistency between tenders posted and contracts published, which is ‘an indication of gaps in compliance, particularly regarding post-award transparency.’

PPRA Director-General Patrick Wanjuki said the rollout of the electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system, where beneficial ownership disclosure has been fully embedded across all procurement methods, will enhance transparency in tender processes going forward.

‘The e-GP system is designed to enforce compliance by ensuring that procurement processes cannot be completed unless the required beneficial ownership information has been disclosed,’ he said.

PPRA has been pushing for increased transparency in the public procurement processes.

The rules on beneficial ownership disclosure were entrenched in law through amendments to the Companies Act in 2019 and subsequent Companies (Beneficial Ownership Information) regulations issued in 2020 and 2022, which expanded the obligation to firms bidding for public tenders and public-private partnerships.

Under the rules, companies must submit details of their beneficial owners at the bidding stage, with successful contractors required to provide full disclosure before signing contracts.

The information is then expected to be published on the PPIP to enhance transparency.

However, the PPRA report shows that compliance remains patchy, with many firms either failing to submit the information or providing incomplete disclosures, effectively shielding the real beneficiaries of public contracts.

The push for full disclosures of the ultimate beneficiaries of State tenders has come amid increasing global scrutiny following concerns that opacity in company ownership fuels corruption, tax evasion, money laundering and even terrorism financing.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog on illicit financial flows, has long recommended that countries establish mechanisms to ensure that beneficial ownership information is available and accessible to competent authorities.

Kenya’s reforms on beneficial ownership were partly driven by the need to align with FATF standards as well as pressure from the International Monetary Fund to unmask and publish the owners of firms winning state contracts as part of the loan access terms.

?palushula@ke.nationmedia.com

Aviation has long been celebrated as an engine of connection, trade and opportunity and every day, millions of people cross borders in search of work, education, safety and new beginnings.

But did you know that unknown to many, it is the same networks that make global mobility possible, that are now becoming increasingly exploited by criminal syndicates moving trafficking victims across continents. The systems criminals exploit can also become powerful tools for prevention and protection.

Working together, airlines, airports, governments and international partners can help transform aviation from a corridor of exploitation into one of the world’s strongest lines of defence.

Human trafficking has evolved dramatically, especially in the recent years. No longer confined to clandestine border crossings, today’s traffickers recruit victims through fake job advertisements, social media and online scams, then move them through legitimate travel routes into forced labour and other criminal enterprises.

Increasingly, victims find themselves trapped in scam compounds, where promises of employment quickly give way to exploitation.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2024 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, detected victims rose 25 percent in 2022 versus 2019, with forced labour cases up 47 percent and child victims up 31 percent.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates nearly 80 percent of international trafficking journeys pass through official border crossings, underscoring that airports and airlines are uniquely positioned to identify risks and support interventions before exploitation deepens.

As the world marks World Day Against Trafficking in Persons under the theme “Trapped Behind the Scam,” aviation has an opportunity to strengthen its role in combating this evolving crime.

Every check-in counter, boarding gate and cabin crew interaction is a potential moment to recognise vulnerability, respond appropriately and connect those at risk with support.

Encouragingly, examples across the industry show what is possible when aviation embraces this responsibility. In March 2023, Kenya Airways (KQ) became the first airline globally to adopt a dedicated Counter Trafficking in Persons Policy, a landmark achievement that set a new standard for the aviation industry’s response to human trafficking.

Developed in partnership with UNODC, the policy positioned KQ as an early leader in the fight against human trafficking, establishing a practical and scalable model for airline action.

By embedding prevention, detection, reporting and victim-support measures into its operations, Kenya Airways helped demonstrate how aviation can play a critical role in combating trafficking, contributing to growing industry momentum that has seen counter-trafficking become an increasingly important priority for airlines worldwide.

A year later, it deepened that commitment through a strategic partnership with the International Organization for Migration Kenya to enhance victim protection, promote safe migration pathways and build staff capacity.

These partnerships have translated into practical action. Between February and April 2025, Kenya Airways supported a multi-agency effort alongside HAART Kenya, the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, the Counter Trafficking in Persons Secretariat and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to repatriate 158 victims rescued from scam compounds in Myanmar, demonstrating what is possible when governments, humanitarian organisations and the aviation sector work toward a common goal.

As criminal networks grow more sophisticated, so too must our collective response. First, the industry should keep investing in frontline training so staff can recognise trafficking indicators and respond safely.

Second, there is an opportunity to deepen partnerships between airlines, airports, governments, UN agencies, law enforcement and civil society; strong referral pathways, coordinated protocols and trusted information-sharing can significantly strengthen victim protection.

Third, stakeholders must keep disrupting the financial and digital ecosystems enabling trafficking, as recruitment moves online and networks rely on cyber-enabled fraud and illicit financial flows.

Continued investment in safe migration pathways, responsible labour recruitment, survivor support services and cross-border cooperation will further reduce the vulnerabilities traffickers seek to exploit. Lasting progress comes from prevention, protection and prosecution working hand in hand.

As Kenya Airways prepares to mark five decades of connecting Africa to the world, our experience reinforces a simple lesson, that aviation’s greatest contribution is not only moving people safely but helping ensure they are never moved into exploitation.

On this World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, the aviation industry has an opportunity to redefine its role. By strengthening partnerships, investing in frontline capability and working collaboratively across borders, airlines and airports can become an integral part of the global response to human trafficking.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has backed a decision by the operators of supermarket chain Carrefour to summarily dismiss a former head of its retail store in Kisumu for accepting undisclosed Sh40,000 cash payments from a registered supplier.

The court ruled that Cornelius Bulimo breached the company’s code of ethics by accepting two equal batches of Sh20,000 payments from a supplier, identified in court records as Peter Mbui, creating a conflict of interest while serving as the senior manager at the Kisumu branch.

“The claimant clearly breached the code of ethics in accepting money from the respondent’s supplier. The Code of Ethics provides that an employee must not derive personal benefit from a relationship with an employer,’ the court said as it backed the decision by the Carrefour operator, Majid Al Futtaim Hypermarkets Limited, to sack Mr Bulimo.

The court dismissed Mr Bulimo’s claim that his termination was unfair but directed the retailer to pay any admitted terminal dues that remained outstanding.

Mr Bulimo joined the retailer in February 2016 as a section manager before rising through several promotions. He became Department Head in 2018, transferred to the Fresh Food Department in January 2021 and was appointed the opening Store Manager for Carrefour Kisumu in June 2021. He was dismissed in March 2022.

He sued the company claiming his dismissal followed a campaign of victimisation after he disagreed with his Area Manager during an earlier disciplinary process involving another employee.

He also alleged discrimination, denial of Covid-19 leave, wrongful suspension, and unfair disciplinary proceedings. He claimed that he was coerced into signing a misleading ‘final warning’ letter backdated and denied his 2021 bonus.

The claimant asked the court to declare that his summary dismissal was unlawful and unfair and to award him more than Sh5 million in compensation, unpaid salary, bonus, overtime, leave, public holiday pay, costs and any other relief the court deemed appropriate.

The retailer denied the allegations, saying investigations established that he had received Sh20,000 on September 1, 2021 and another Sh20,000 on September 30, 2021 from a company that supplied cosmetic products to Carrefour.

It maintained that the transactions breached its code of ethics and amounted to gross misconduct.

The court found that the employer had established a lawful and valid reason for dismissal.

‘The Code of Ethics provides that an employee must not derive personal benefit from a relationship with an employer. There is no other way that can be interpreted of the money the claimant received from Mr. Mbui, Director of Miss Beauty Company Limited, a supplier of Cosmetics to the respondent,” the court said.

It added that Mr Bulimo had worked for the company for several years, understood its ethics policies and “failed to adhere to the same.”

The court noted that Mr Bulimo sought certified M-Pesa records but did not expressly deny receiving the money. The judgment also recorded that the supplier described the payments as being made on a “friendly basis”.

The court said the employment contract required workers to disclose any circumstances capable of creating an undisclosed conflict of interest.

“There is no other way that can be interpreted of the money the claimant received,” the court said, noting Mr Bulimo was simultaneously serving as the retailer’s store manager.

On procedure, the court found the company complied with the Employment Act by issuing notices to show cause, conducting investigations, inviting him to a disciplinary hearing and considering an appeal.

“The respondent complied with the above requirements,” the court ruled before concluding that the company had proved lawful and fair termination.

The court dismissed the suit and directed the retailer to pay any outstanding admitted terminal dues, including prorated salary, accrued leave and eligible public holiday pay, if those amounts had not already been settled.

The review of a long-term national development blueprint such as Vision 2030 is a routine, yet profoundly important exercise for any administration. President William Ruto and the Kenya Kwanza Government find themselves at the centre of this historic milestone simply because they are in office at a time when Vision 2030 is approaching its conclusion.

Planning for a post-Vision 2030 blueprint has little to do with the current administration and everything to do with the people of Kenya. Like Vision 2030 before it, the next long-term development agenda should emerge from a highly participatory, consultative and inclusive process involving international and local experts, ordinary Kenyans, and stakeholders from every part of the country.

Part of the answer lies in the prevailing political environment.

In recent weeks, the President has come under sustained political pressure from the opposition. This has been compounded by the UDA Party’s loss in the Ol Kalou by-election, a result that has sparked anxiety within the ruling party.

Coming on the heels of these developments, the President’s special State of the Nation Address focusing on a post-2030 Vision has inevitably been viewed by many through a political lens. Whether intended or not, the timing has created the impression that the conversation is also meant to shift public discourse away from the administration’s declining public approval.

Similarly, many Kenyans may not have taken the President’s proposal as seriously as it deserves. The trust deficit between the government and the public has widened considerably.

A growing list of unfulfilled promises, coupled with the public ridicule embodied in the nickname “Mr Six Months”, has made it increasingly difficult for the President to inspire confidence.

More fundamentally, many citizens believe that the government’s policies have fallen short of the aspirations embodied in the “Hustler Nation” promise and the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.

As a result, Kenya risks losing a historic opportunity to hold a genuinely consultative and non-partisan national conversation about Vision 2060. The proposal has come at a time when the country remains deeply polarised, when many young people, who will ultimately inherit that future, feel excluded from national decision-making, and when the country is already entering another election cycle.

Consequently, the moment risks being consumed by political rhetoric rather than producing a blueprint that genuinely reflects the aspirations of the Kenyan people.

The President should resist the temptation to turn such an important national exercise into a political project. Doing so would only reinforce the growing sense of disappointment that many Kenyans already feel.

Vision 2030 already has an established governance framework, including a delivery board chaired by Emmanuel Kombe Nzai, a distinguished economist and policy expert, supported by a dedicated secretariat.

At this stage, less than three years before the Vision reaches its target year, a comprehensive implementation review should have been undertaken and presented to the President, outlining the country’s progress, achievements and outstanding gaps.

It is from that assessment that the President should constitute a multidisciplinary team of local and international experts, policy think tanks and practitioners to undertake extensive public consultations across the country, gathering views on where Kenyans envision their nation over the next three decades.

Should the President secure a second term, he would then be well placed to lead a bipartisan national conversation towards Vision 2060.

It must be abundantly clear that this is not the President’s vision for Kenya, nor a campaign project. It is Kenya’s vision for Kenya.

It is not too late for the President to get this right. Given the prevailing political climate and growing public discontent, he should refrain from making Vision 2060 part of the political contest and instead establish a team to undertake the necessary research, technical studies and nationwide consultations.

If re-elected in 2027, he would then be in a position to guide the country through a genuinely inclusive process of developing the new blueprint. Should he not secure another term, he would nevertheless have laid a solid foundation upon which the next administration could build.

Fifteen years later, he occupies the sixth-floor corner office at KPC headquarters in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, serving as acting Managing Director-a role he says fulfils a long-held ambition, whether permanent or not.

‘When the history books are written, I will have made my contribution and left my legacy. Nobody can take that away from me, even if it was just five months.’

Mwendwa attributes his rise to a willingness to think beyond the traditional boundaries of his profession. ‘If I were not dreaming, I wouldn’t be where I am,’ he says. ‘It’s probably why there are more accountants becoming CEOs than before.’

With a Master of Commerce from Strathmore University and a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Mwendwa also holds a Certified Public Accountant of Kenya (CPA-K) and is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).

Fear, he argues, is often the biggest obstacle to leadership.

‘If I fear, I will not progress. Even if they called me today to be the President of Kenya, I wouldn’t fear. Chapa kazi.’

The corner office, however, comes at a cost. ‘You can’t plan your day because anything can come up. If you’re not careful, you can easily lose your social life,’ he says.

When you got this job, who was the first person you called and what did they tell you?

I hadn’t applied for it. It just happened in a flash, over the Easter holiday. I was at Machakos Golf Club with my wife, playing a round when the chair of the board called me.

Given the requirements of the Capital Markets Authority, a press release was to be written the same day. All the balls I was teeing off were hitting the bush [chuckles].

Have the type of phone calls that you receive changed?

Immediately after the press release, I was called by many people-former colleagues, former KPC directors, very senior people. Every other time I receive calls from policymakers, the Cabinet Secretary (CS), PS and CEOs.

What does a big office do to a man like you?

It humbles you [chuckles]. For me, the big office is not really the space you’re occupying; it’s the responsibility that you’re taking. Especially one like this, which drives the economy of the country and the region.

I now have to look at life very differently. I have to reorganise my time. Here, you can’t plan your day because anything can come up, like urgent meetings with the CS. If you’re not careful, you can easily lose your social life.

Growing up, what kind of dreams did you have?

My desire was actually to be a journalist. I was very good at languages. I even went for voice tests at some point [chuckles]. I did accountancy and never looked back, but I always dreamt of leading an organisation, even though I didn’t know which type.

I was just sure I was not going to do finance for the rest of my life. When you get to the apex of finance, the general manager finance, or Group Finance Director, the next level is a CEO.

What aspects of journalism do you bring into your career?

I believe journalism is about telling the story. And one of the things that I find very relevant in my career, and especially in this position, is to try to tell the story of the organisation, the different aspects of life, and the transformation that one can make. When it’s not told, it’s not known.

Do accountants daydream-and what do those dreams look like?

[Chuckles] A lot! You might see accountants engrossed in numbers, but they dream. In my daydreaming, I look at myself, picture where I want to be, and start working toward that dream. If I were not dreaming, I wouldn’t be where I am. It’s probably why more accountants are becoming CEOs than before.

If someone were to interview the people who knew you at 16 years old, what would they say they saw in you that today’s headlines have not?

Calmness and managing my emotions. I am analytical. I like looking at situations before I make a judgment.

What was your relationship with money growing up?

Very strict [chuckles]. I was doing my personal finances even before I started accounting. I’ve tried as much as possible to spend within my resources and my needs.

I look at money from the perspective of what value it generates. You have to convince me that if I’m spending that shilling, I will get value. Even my family knows that when I go shopping, I’d rather buy one nice pair of shoes a year than 10 pairs in a year. I stopped buying mitumba for this reason.

It’s a common belief, or perhaps a misconception, that accountants are there to stifle expenditure rather than to maximise its creation. Is this true?

It is a perception, not the reality. Numbers don’t lie. Accountants are stewards, and what a steward does is take care of what has been placed on them.

This is unlike marketers who just want to spend whether it is generating or not. Accountants look at the value to be generated, and I think that is where the misconception comes in, because we’ll always ask a lot of questions. When you see people praising an accountant all the time, know that’s not a very good accountant.

In what area of your life has money been your master?

Investments. I have several insurance policies. Once I invest, I also plow back the investments into other ventures that generate income, because I believe that you cannot generate income when your money is not multiplying.

What are your current money beliefs?

Ideally, money should work for you. And if you put that in mind, you’ll not spend money recklessly. Of course I still want to go on holidays, buy good things and dine with my family, but that money has to work for me.

What is a business cliché or something that everyone repeats that you now know to be dangerous or wrong?

I don’t believe in luck like charity sweepstakes or betting. I’ve never believed that there’s luck in getting money and creating wealth. You have to go through the long route. I can almost guarantee you those who make money through betting never get anywhere.

You grew up without wealth and have considerably built some for yourself. How are you keeping your children hungry, seeing as lack is not their motivator?

Every afternoon we sit down and share experiences. I have a boy in fourth year, and a girl in first year. I encourage them to know that my work is to empower them to generate their own income when they grow up, through a culture of hard work and self-reliance. I’ve also made them understand that what I have belongs to me and their mother, it doesn’t belong to them.

They have to find their own wealth. I’ve also told them that whatever I’m generating is also to ensure that when they are grown-ups, I don’t become a burden to them.

How do you remain a father at home seeing that this job is a jealous mistress that can demand most of your time, and often gets it?

Luckily, my two children are now grown-ups. I was very deliberate about spending weekends with my family, and on weekdays I don’t stay out late unless I have to.

I am here by 7am and leave at 6pm, and I eat my lunch here at the office. I’ll do my exercise at home in the evening, and I usually sleep quite early. My wife and son play golf, so you’ll find us doing a round together as we bond. My son is actually the best golfer in the family, although once in a while I win.

What do you wish your children knew about you that they don’t?

I put up a very strong face even when things are not going the way they should. I can share with my wife, but I understand that children are very fragile. Also, they look at their father as a strong person, a leader, and when you seem like you are lost and have fear, they will also get lost and be fearful.

Do you ever worry that by protecting your children from your vulnerability, you may also be teaching them that strength means suffering in silence?

I would say yes and no because one of the things that I usually tell them is to share when they have troubles. But you need to know who you are sharing with-there are people you can share your troubles with and they break. I share mine with my wife and close confidants, but I try to spare my children, so I don’t disorganise them.

Have you changed as a husband over the years?

I don’t think so. Some say I am very predictable. I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing [chuckles]. Not much has changed, but I try as much as possible to be a mentor and have a positive impact on my wife.

My wife calls me her role model, and that tells you I have impacted her life. If your wife loves you, she will not let you leave the house looking shabby. She has moulded me in that way, and I listen to her a lot.

Has marriage made you a better leader, or has leadership made you a better husband?

[Chuckles] Marriage has made me a better leader by virtue of the fact that leadership starts at home. If you can’t lead at home, you can’t lead an organisation. Similarly, if you cannot navigate family issues and provide the right leadership, which translates to you having peace and good family relations, that will impact how you lead at work. The first test of leadership is your family.

Businesses reinvent themselves to stay relevant. Marriages have to do something similar. Life keeps asking both of you to become different people-parents, empty nesters, perhaps grandparents. How have you learned to keep rediscovering one another instead of clinging to who you used to be?

You have to marry a friend. Marriages require transitions, but if you are friends, you will be building each other because life presents different phases, and it is easier to adjust when you are friends. That is the critical element. Friendship.

Since you are still acting MD, are you ever worried that you are not the man they eventually pick for the job?

I’m not worried, because whichever way it goes, I have been in this company for 15 years, and nobody can take away the contribution I have made. And even if I were not to be confirmed for the position for the period that I will have served, I am certainly sure I will have made my contribution, and left my legacy, even if it was just five months.

I started acting at a very delicate period when the company went through a transition from a State corporation to a publicly listed company, and when history books are written, they will remember me as the person who navigated that. If I were to be told to go back to the position that I was in, I would happily go back and continue.

What has success not fixed?

The fact that I am human. I am still vulnerable and exposed to the hassles of this world, and I have to navigate to ensure that I manage any vulnerabilities that come with success.

When you are successful, you get to understand why they say success has many mothers and fathers. Everybody will be on your case everywhere you go. People want to identify with you, and they come with a lot of demands and expectations beyond what you are able to.

Did getting this job feel as good as you thought it would?

It did, because my initial target was to get to be a CEO in my mid-40s. I am now in my early 50s. There’s no wrong time, and there are many people who may never get to the head of finance, which I became at 45, so it’s step by step. These things are all relative. Some will say 50 is still young, and they may be right because the average age of CEOs is 50, and I am happy with that [chuckles].

What has become much more important to you now in your 50s as compared to your 30s?

The legacy. You start planning more for your retirement. You look at how many people you have mentored, and focus more on the impact of your life.

50 years in, what experience has significantly shaped your life?

I try very much to identify with the Bible. I have served in my church since I was young, and one thing that has given me the impetus to continue is humility-just to be able to associate with and respect everyone, and to do the right thing. Integrity comes first, and without it you cannot rise. Joshua 1:9 tells you to be courageous. It is actually a command.

When I was given this responsibility in the midst of turmoil, I asked myself, will I manage? I said fear is my worst enemy, and if I fear, I will not progress. That’s my advice: Do not fear even if they call you to be the President of Kenya today. Don’t fear. Chapa kazi.

British multinational Diageo is set to pocket a dividend of Sh4.47 billion from EABL as the proposed sale of its stake in the Kenyan firm to Japan’s Asahi Holdings remains held up by court cases.

EABL announced a final dividend of Sh8.70 per share for the year ended June 2026, to be paid on October 31, 2026, to shareholders on its books as at October 19, 2026.

In April, the brewer paid an interim dividend of Sh4 per share, meaning that its full-year distribution has risen to Sh12.70 per share, from Sh8 in the year to June 2025.

British multinational Diageo is set to pocket a dividend of Sh4.47 billion from EABL as the proposed sale of its stake in the Kenyan firm to Japan’s Asahi Holdings remains held up by court cases.

EABL announced a final dividend of Sh8.70 per share for the year ended June 2026, to be paid on October 31, 2026, to shareholders on its books as at October 19, 2026.

In April, the brewer paid an interim dividend of Sh4 per share, meaning that its full-year distribution has risen to Sh12.70 per share, from Sh8 in the year to June 2025.

‘We thought it was going to be faster, but it has been difficult. When it comes to regulatory approval, that should be pretty simple,’ said Ms Karuku.

An additional hurdle was thrown up by multiple, successive court cases challenging the sale-some of which have been dismissed by the High Court- leading to a protest by the company that parallel litigation has created the risk of conflicting rulings.

The dismissed petitions include a bid by beer distributor Bia Tosha to stop the transaction pending the conclusion of a distributorship row with EABL, and a separate petition by Kenyan construction firm JILK Construction Company that has long-running commercial disputes with EABL.

The court ruled that the litigation and disputes could still be determined even if the transaction proceeded.

However, in June 2026, the High Court suspended the transaction pending hearing of a petition by Christine Irungu, who argued that minority shareholders were denied material information when Diageo increased its stake in the brewer from 50.03 percent to 65 percent in 2023 before pursuing the sale to Asahi.

She further argued that Diageo’s acquisition of the additional shares was presented as a long-term investment demonstrating its confidence in East Africa’s growth prospects.

The petitioner contended that the subsequent decision to sell the enlarged stake would raise questions about whether investors received full disclosure of material information when the tender offer was undertaken.

The hiccups in the Diageo transaction are in contrast to the disposal by the government of a 15 percent stake or six billion shares of Safaricom to South Africa’s Vodafone Group, which was done in time for the buyer to enjoy the company’s final dividend for the year ending March 2026.

The Sh204.3 billion deal has seen Vodacom’s stake in Safaricom rise to 55 percent from 40 percent, while that of the State drops to 20 percent from 35 percent. The Vodacom purchase was also announced in December 2025-two weeks before the Diageo transaction was announced- and was concluded on June 30, 2026.

Safaricom announced a final dividend of Sh1.15 per share, resulting in a full-year payout of Sh2 per share when added to the interim dividend of Sh0.85 per share distributed earlier in April.

The book closure date for the final dividend was August 4, meaning that Vodacom will be the one banking the Sh6.9 billion payout accruing to the 15 percent stake it bought from the government.

In the year to March 2025, Safaricom had paid a dividend of Sh1.20 per share or Sh48.08 in total, out of which the Treasury earned Sh16.83 billion from its 35 percent stake at the time.

More than 50 containers of pharmaceutical raw materials are stranded at Mombasa and the Nairobi inland depot, and manufacturers are bleeding roughly Sh1 million a day in demurrage.

The cause is not a missing law but a missing signature: until the Ministry of Health issues its approval and the new tax framework in the Finance Act 2026 is gazetted, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) keeps charging the standard 16 percent VAT on these imports.

Worse, under the framework that took effect on July 1, inputs for local manufacturing are now “exempt” rather than “zero-rated” – a distinction that sounds bureaucratic but determines whether a factory can claim back the VAT it pays, or must simply eat it.

That distinction is the whole argument. A zero-rated manufacturer charges no VAT on its output but reclaims every shilling of VAT paid on inputs – raw materials, packaging, electricity, lab services, repairs. An exempt manufacturer also charges no VAT on output, but forfeits the right to claim anything back. Every shilling of input VAT becomes a sunk cost, baked into the price of the tablet or the vial.

In an industry already running below efficient scale, that is not a marginal nudge upward. It compounds against firms already carrying high fixed costs over low output, and it lands, ultimately, in the pocket of a sick citizen buying medicine.

This is where the real policy question sits: when the exchequer’s arithmetic collides with the price of a child’s antibiotic, which one gives way? It should not be a hard question. But having swallowed the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) blanket prescription of “tax expenditures,” Kenya’s policymakers have talked themselves into treating cheap medicine and Treasury revenue as a zero-sum trade-off. It is a false choice, and the rest of the world figured that out three decades ago.

During the Uruguay Round of GATT, concluded in 1994, the world’s largest pharmaceutical producers – the US, the EU, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Norway – signed the “zero-for-zero initiative,” eliminating tariffs on medicines and the chemical intermediates used to make them, and committing not to replace those tariffs with other barriers.

The resulting Pharmaceutical Tariff Elimination Agreement, in force since January 1995, has grown from 22 countries to cover thousands of products across 34 signatories.

That was not sentimentality. It was a hard-nosed decision by the world’s most fiscally sophisticated economies that medicine is not a normal traded good to be milked for customs revenue – that health access trumps fiscal opportunism, even for governments perfectly capable of taxing trade if they chose to.

Kenya never signed that agreement – it was negotiated among producers seeking reciprocal market access – but the principle behind it has since surfaced in World Health Organisation guidance, in World Trade Organisation TRIPS (The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) flexibilities, and in the tax codes of most functioning health systems: essential medicines are merit goods, not revenue lines.

Governments that tax them anyway do so quietly, and pay for it later in worse health outcomes and higher out-of-pocket spending.

It is as if Kenyan tax policy has forgotten Covid-19 entirely. When global supply chains seized in 2020, the countries that suffered most were those with no domestic capacity to make even basic health commodities.

Kenya imports over 70 percent of the pharmaceuticals it consumes and more than 95 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients, almost all from India and China. The obvious response should have been to build local capacity deliberately, through the tax code as much as industrial policy.

Instead, Kenya’s tax trajectory has run the other way – even as the government proclaims a 2023 presidential directive to produce 50 percent of essential medicines locally, and a 2026-2030 strategy to lift capacity utilisation to 70 percent.

A tax code working against those targets while industrial policy claims to chase them is not an oversight; it is incoherence dressed up as fiscal discipline. None of this makes the Treasury’s position baseless.

The fiscal deficit is real, and zero-rating regimes are, by Treasury’s own reckoning, costly and prone to abuse through fraudulent refund claims – a case the IMF and tax administrators make consistently.

A narrower toolkit of direct subsidies, tariff protection on APIs, or capital allowances might achieve the same industrial goal with less leakage.

These are legitimate technical debates.

What cannot be debated is the objective: a tax system that makes medicine costlier and local production less viable is moving in exactly the wrong direction, and every day of the delays the local pharmaceutical manufacturing industry is currently experiencing at the at the Mombasa port, is proof of it.

The United States has issued a new health alert for Kenya due to an increase in dengue fever cases. This places the country back on the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Global Dengue Travel Health Notice, more than two years after the agency first issued the global advisory in June 2024.

The updated notice, released on August 3, maintains Kenya at Level 1 – Practice Usual Precautions, which is the lowest travel advisory level. However, it flags an elevated risk along the coast and in Wajir and Garissa counties. Although it does not advise against travel, the CDC recommends that travellers take steps to prevent mosquito bites.

Kenya is one of 11 countries reporting higher-than-usual dengue activity, or a higher-than-expected number of dengue infections among US travellers returning from these destinations. The others are Bolivia, Cambodia, Colombia, Malaysia, the Maldives, New Caledonia, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Tonga and Vietnam.

“Dengue is a mosquito-borne virus common in tropical and subtropical climates that can lead to fever, aches and pains, nausea and rashes,” the statement said.

“Travellers to risk areas should prevent mosquito bites by using an EPA-registered insect repellent, wearing long-sleeved shirts and long trousers outdoors and sleeping in an air-conditioned or screened room.”

Dengue is a viral infection mainly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which breeds in stagnant water and bites mainly during the day. The disease can range from a mild or asymptomatic infection to severe dengue, including haemorrhagic fever, which can be fatal without prompt medical care.

Symptoms usually develop within three to 10 days of being bitten by an infected mosquito, most commonly within five to seven days. These include sudden high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, and intense muscle and joint pain. Others are nausea, skin rash, and in some cases, mild bleeding such as nosebleeds or bleeding gums.

Diagnosis can be difficult because the initial symptoms are similar to those of malaria and chikungunya.

Kenya does not currently offer a dengue vaccine; therefore, the main defences against the disease are mosquito-bite prevention, vector control, and early treatment.

Kenya’s current outbreak began in November 2025.

The country has experienced repeated dengue outbreaks over the past four decades. Major outbreaks have been recorded along the coast in 1982, from 2013 to 2014, and in 2021.

The northeastern counties of Garissa, Wajir, and Mandera have also experienced periodic surges, including a major outbreak in Mandera between 2011 and 2012 that infected several thousand people.

High income status within a generation is now official policy. Yet at the current growth, Kenya won’t get there until well into the next century. The gap is about savings and investment, not vision.

In an address on July 30, President William Ruto invited the country to a National Conversation to write a development charter that will succeed Vision 2030.

Behind it sits the working group report chaired by Prof Peter Anyang Nyong’o and Prof Hiroyuki Hino. The phrase it uses is unambiguous: a First World, high income and industrialised nation within one generation.

Vision 2030 set a target of 10 percent and delivered 4.9. Our best single year since the 1970s was 7.1 percent, in 2007. The economy fell to 1.5 percent the following year.

Since 1990, only 34 middle-income economies have made it to high income, and more than a third of those did so through EU accession or newly discovered oil.

Sub-Sahara has one high-income economy, Seychelles, a state of about 130,000 people. Vietnam was reclassified by the World Bank as upper-middle income this month, 35 years after its reforms began. Kenya remains lower-middle income.

The ambition places Kenya where most countries fail, in a region it has never been done at scale, on a timetable faster than the fastest recent performer has managed.

Every economy that has made this leap did so on the back of extraordinary investment. The East Asian tigers ploughed between a quarter and two-fifths of national output back into productive assets for decades.

Vietnam and South Korea still run gross capital formation around 32 percent of GDP. Kenya’s stands at 16.8 percent, below the world average of 22.3 percent and well below our own 1978 peak of 29.8 per cent. Gross national savings hover between 12 and 16 percent.

Public debt has passed Sh13 trillion, roughly 69 percent of GDP against a statutory anchor of 55 percent due by 2028. Treasury says debt service could absorb close to 91 percent of ordinary revenue in 2026/27 financial year.

To its credit, the report understands the productivity of half of the equation. Its central argument is about sequence rather than ambition: land reform, then agricultural productivity, then labour intensive manufacturing for export, then the absorption of technology.

Manufacturing has fallen to about 7.2 percent of GDP against a Vision 2030 target of 15, and 83.6 percent of employment sits in the informal sector.

By grounding the charter in Article 43, which guarantees health, housing, food, water, social security and education, he shifts development from a preference of those who govern to an obligation owed to the governed. A charter, unlike a plan, sets standards a government can be measured against.

The report is quiet on where the investment comes from, and quieter on land, listing secure tenure without confronting the redistribution that made the Asian sequence work.

There is also a timing problem: the working group proposes launching the Vision by the end of 2026, while the Conversation begins on August 12. Four months is not a national consensus.

The test for the National Conversation is narrow. Does it produce numbers Kenyans can hold governments to: an investment rate, a savings target, a manufacturing share of GDP, a debt-service ceiling, a date? Get the numbers into the charter and the ambition becomes a plan. Leave them out and we will be reading a fourth grand vision in another 20 years, asking once more why the last one did not hold.

There is an 81 percent chance that the El Niño expected to peak between October and December and possibly persist into early 2027 could become one of the most powerful events since 1950. This is according to a projection by the US Climate Prediction Center (CPC).

That forecast should serve as a wake-up call for the government and all institutions responsible for disaster preparedness and response. The question is no longer whether Kenya should prepare, but whether it is ready.

If preparedness is the country’s first line of defense, the budget does little to reflect that priority. The 2026/27 National Budget contains no dedicated allocation for El Niño preparedness, meaning any response will depend on existing disaster management and contingency financing.

This is despite a recent report from The International Rescue Committee (IRC) placing Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and some regions of Asia among the most at risk.

This challenge is compounded by shrinking donor funding. As reported by the Daily Nation on July 30th, Kenya Red Cross Secretary General, Ahmed Idris says funding from the United States has fallen to about 40 percent. At a time when Kenya is already experiencing a prolonged dry spell, reduced humanitarian financing could weaken the country’s ability to respond to the impacts of El Niño.

The question that keeps coming up though is, why is it that as a country we are always caught flat footed and left to take a reactive approach rather than a proactive one. Where do we miss the mark and what gaps should be addressed?

The World Resources Institute (WRI) warns that decades of poor urban planning, ageing drainage systems and environmental degradation have left Nairobi vulnerable to flood disasters.

While Kenya’s Cabinet Committee on El Niño Preparedness and Response is mandated to implement a national contingency plan, evacuation and shelter, the emphasis remains largely on managing consequences of extreme weather rather than addressing the structural vulnerabilities that make disasters so devastating in the first place.

These are not problems that can be solved through emergency response alone. They require sustained investment in resilient infrastructure, stronger enforcement of land-use regulations, protection of wetlands, and closer coordination between National and County Governments. Without addressing these structural weaknesses Kenya remains exposed to the same vulnerabilities.

We really do not have to look far for lessons. Rwanda has demonstrated how long-term investment in climate resilience can significantly reduce flood risk. Like Nairobi today, Kigali once experienced frequent flooding whenever heavy rains pounded.

Rapid urbanisation had encroached on Kigali’s wetlands, reducing their natural ability to absorb floodwater. With over 500 hectares of urban wetlands rehabilitated, Kigali now stands as the largest wide urban wetland rehabilitation in Africa and in the world.

The rehabilitated wetlands do not just bolster the city’s defense against floods but also offers spaces for tourism, education and recreation, while improving water quality and biodiversity.

According to the World Bank, Rwanda’s Wetland Ecosystem Parks will draw over 1.5 million annual visits by 2036, create 7,500 jobs, nearly half of them for women and result in $45-90 million in avoided flood damages, linking recreation, research, and nature-based tourism to community benefits.

Kenya’s context is different, but the principle is the same. Taking a more proactive approach before disasters strike is significantly less costly than rebuilding after floods. Climate adaptation should therefore be viewed not as environmental expenditure but as an economic investment that protects infrastructure, livelihoods, and public finances while also offering the opportunity to create new streams of employment.

Kenya’s National Treasury has already quantified the cost of inaction. Data from the newly launched Disaster Risk Financing Strategy 2026-2030 shows that the 2023 and 2024 floods resulted in an estimated Sh187.82 billion in damages and losses, underscoring how climate shocks have become a fiscal and economic challenge, and not just a humanitarian one.

With more than 30 percent of Kenya’s GDP and over 40 percent of employment tied to climate-sensitive sectors, investing in preparedness is no longer optional. As the Treasury itself recommends, disaster risk must be integrated into public budgeting and financing.