Category: Business Daily

Hilda Mwangi left Kenya expecting to build a career at sea. Four years later, she is in Bucharest, making croissants, cinnamon rolls and fruit pastries in a small bakery.

She is among an increasing number of Kenyans trooping to Romania, attracted by its relatively ease of access and high labour demand, with employers recruiting foreign workers for jobs ranging from hospitality and caregiving to logistics, and food production.

But while getting there may be less costly compared to other European countries, these Kenyans are quickly finding out that the salary on a contract can look very different from what remains in a worker’s pocket after taxes, insurance, rent and other costs.

A loan and a Sh200,000 fee

Before leaving Kenya, Hilda, 30, was in her final year studying maritime shipping and logistics at Mombasa Airways Training Institute. She imagined a career at sea, but a conversation with a friend working in Qatar opened a different door.

‘We were speaking about working abroad, and he introduced me to an agent,’ she tells the BDLife.

Her family look a loan and gave an agent Sh200,000 to facilitate her move to Romania. It was only after she arrived that Hilda realised she may not have needed to pay anything.

‘Most of these jobs are free. The employer takes care of everything,’ she says.

She landed in Bucharest in November 2022, straight into winter. Her first job was at an Asian fast-food outlet, where she sold noodles and soup, served customers and operated the till. The language barrier was difficult, while some customers reacted with surprise to her skin colour.

The job also came with a pay cut from what she had been promised in Kenya. Instead of the Sh100,000 monthly salary she had been told to expect, she earned Sh80,000.

A month later, the employer told her that it had hired too many workers and had to let some go. Hilda was among those who lost their jobs.

She was given until June 2023 to find another employer or return to Kenya.

Luckily she found one willing to take her on and work through the paperwork, even hiring a lawyer to help complete the process before her visa expired.

The new job, she says, was in hotel housekeeping. Hilda stayed for seven months but was unhappy with the pay.

‘It’s like I was getting less rather than making more,’ she says.

Career pivots

She chose to pivot into caregiving.

In August 2023, Hilda joined a nursing home run by a Tanzanian woman. The job changed how she viewed her life in Romania.

‘I found peace in caregiving,’ she says. ‘The old people, they were so warm to me. This brought a whole different change in my mind.’

She also learnt Romanian while communicating with elderly residents who spoke no English.

Her salary rose to Sh120,000 a month, giving her a better financial footing. But six months later, the nursing home closed.

A colleague from the facility helped her find another job, this time at a pastry shop. ‘I have this very good girl, very hardworking, and I think if you take her, she will give you the best,’ the friend told the shop owner.

Hilda had no formal baking experience, but she had always enjoyed cooking. She learnt quickly and, within three months, was moved to a new branch.

She now works eight-hour shifts, often starting at 5am, making croissants, pain au chocolat, cinnamon rolls and fruit pastries filled with goat cheese cream.

The job, she notes, has also given her time to study Romanian.

Her plans were interrupted when she had to stop working for six months while her employer processed her papers. She eventually resumed both work and school toward the end of October 2024.

‘I have continued since, still juggling shifts with lectures,’ she says.

She has also taken on part-time nanny work.

Hilda says while the journey has moved a long way from the career she imagined while studying maritime logistics, she is excited about her future prospects. Her biggest ambition now is to return to Nairobi and open her own pastry shop.

Starting over at 46

At 46, Gerald Wachira had spent more than two decades building a wholesale food business in Kenya. He supplied shops and households and had once considered the business his route to financial security.

But in 2024, the business collapsed. A friend later shared an advertisement for jobs in Romania, prompting Gerald to consider starting over abroad.

Unlike Hilda, he was wary of recruitment agents. Before committing himself, he privately contacted Kenyans already living in Romania to establish whether the agent was legitimate.

He began the immigration process in October 2024. The move cost him Sh450,000, largely from his savings and what remained of his business, and covered his visa and travel expenses.

Five months later, he got his work-permit appointment and eventually travelled to Romania.

His new life began on a motorbike just as winter was ending. Gerald started working as a delivery rider in Bucharest, learning the city’s roads, collection points and drop-off addresses from scratch. ‘It was so hard for me,’ he says.

Within a month or two, however, he had found his rhythm. The seasons brought new challenges. Summer heat was intense, while autumn’s wet leaves made the roads slippery. Winter brought snow that sometimes made it impossible to work.

‘I’ve never had an accident in Kenya, but here, I can count like five times,’ he says.

After an accident in November 2025, Gerald asked his employer to give him a van instead of a motorbike. The request changed the nature of his work.

He began making long-distance trips from Bucharest to Italy through Hungary and Slovenia, travelling about 2,400 kilometres each way – almost 5,000 kilometres on a round trip – carrying vegetables and other foodstuffs.

He worked the route through November, December and January, but says the pay did not match the demands. His employer expected him to make four full trips a month, targets Gerald says he struggled to meet.

‘My employer paid poorly and blamed me for missing targets that required four full trips a month. I could not even manage to help my family at home,’ he says, adding that by January, he had decided to return to ordinary delivery work.

He also joined Bolt, taking on ride-hailing work alongside deliveries. For a period, he was effectively working two jobs just to get through a difficult February.

Around April 2026, his van employer terminated his contract, saying his earnings were too low to justify keeping him. Gerald and a colleague then found a new full-time employer who helped them secure fresh work permits at a cost of about Sh28,000 each.

Gerald has remained with the employer, working on Glovo while continuing to earn through Bolt.

He now takes home about Sh42,000 a week, or roughly Sh178,000 a month. But even that figure comes with costs attached.

‘I have rented this motorbike from an agent under a commission arrangement,’ he says.

His next goal is to convert his Kenyan driving licence. If successful, he hopes to qualify for truck driving, a career he sees as more stable than the series of delivery jobs he has taken since arriving.

For Gerald, the journey to rebuilding his financial stability in Romania has not been smooth. He nevertheless believes the move was worthwhile.

‘There is a light at the end of the tunnel,’ he says.

‘Come, but don’t expect a lot’

Martha Wambui’s experience offers another reminder that the salary attached to a job abroad does not necessarily tell the whole financial story.

The 38-year-old arrived in Romania with years of caregiving experience, having previously spent four years working in Saudi Arabia.

She began with two years of housekeeping before moving into caregiving for a bedridden elderly woman. She remained there for another two years, until the woman died.

Martha returned to Kenya in early 2024 and spent the next eight months without work while hoping to travel again, perhaps to Dubai or Kuwait.

Nothing came through. Then a friend eventually recommended Romania where she travelled in December 2024, with her employer paying her Sh93,000 airfare. Martha paid Sh20,000 for her visa from her own savings.

Her first job was as a nanny. ‘I was sleeping with the baby, doing everything like the baby was mine. They were taking the baby only on Sunday,’ she says.

Household chores were added to her responsibilities, despite not being part of the original agreement.

She stayed for one year and two months, earning about Sh89,000 a month, before deciding to leave. But her departure was not straightforward after her employer resisted signing the release papers she needed to change jobs, but Martha eventually moved on.

By March 2026, she had found another job. ‘I started simply as a helper doing the basic cleaning and support work around the kitchen. I earned about Sh74,000 as a bakery cleaner.’

By July, she had moved to a sandwich company, where she works in packaging. The new job came without a fee for her fresh work permit and paid slightly more than her previous position.

Her days now are long. An eight-hour shift can stretch with overtime, with some days beginning at 6am and ending around 8pm.

Martha shares a rented studio apartment with other tenants. The base rent is Sh37,000, while utilities push the total to about Sh52,000, which is divided among the roommates.

Her company does not provide housing, despite what she says some contracts promise.

Martha says the biggest lesson has been that a European salary should not automatically be equated with easy money.

‘I would tell someone to come, but do not come expecting to get a lot of money,’ she says.

Taxes and health insurance can take a sizeable portion of a salary. She remembers receiving a payslip showing Sh121,000 but being left with roughly Sh76,000 after deductions.

Eleven of the 20 fastest-growing economies in the world this year are African. A continent generating that much growth cannot be treated as a footnote to anyone else’s agenda.

It has been drawn as one all the same. This month, 164 governments voted to replace the Mercator projection with Equal Earth, showing Africa at its true scale. Togo introduced the resolution on behalf of the African Group, following the African Union Assembly’s adoption of the item in February. It passed with one vote against and six abstentions.

What interests me here is not the map.

Mercator was drawn in 1569 for navigators who needed straight compass bearings. Its distortion of landmass is a trade-off, not an error. Africa appears roughly the size of Greenland; it is actually about fourteen times larger. The correction was available for centuries. What changed this year was not the mathematics. It was the authorship.

For most of the modern era, this continent’s story has been written for us-sympathetically at times, expertly at times, but elsewhere. Aid appeals, risk ratings, documentary voiceovers: each a projection with a purpose, unquestioned long enough to feel like geography.

This time, a member state moved an instrument through a continental body into a global chamber and carried it 164 to 1. Seven months from Addis Ababa to New York.

As governments convene for the UN General Assembly this week, Africa owes itself a hard conversation: what are we going to move next?

The uncomfortable part of this victory should be named by us. The resolution recommends. It does not bind. We have proved we can win the free votes. The discipline now required is to spend the same coordination on those that carry a price.

Twenty-one years ago, at Ezulwini and Sirte, Africa agreed on a common position on the Security Council: two permanent seats with all the prerogatives of permanent membership, including the veto, and five non-permanent seats. Fifty-five states, one position, no drift in two decades.

Yet reform has not moved. The Intergovernmental Negotiations have run since 2009 without a negotiating text delegations are obliged to work from. In 2024, the Pact for the Future committed the membership to redressing Africa’s historical injustice as a priority.

Our case has been good for 21 years. Are we prepared to run the Council file as Togo ran the map file: a named mover, a coordinated bloc, a tabled instrument, a date? Council reform requires two-thirds of the membership and ratification by all five permanent members.

Expensive is not impossible. We have never lacked the argument. We have lacked the instrument and the deadline.

The G20 tells a similar story. The African Union took its seat in 2023. South Africa held the presidency and hosted the summit in 2025. A seat and a gavel inside three years is a serious institutional result.

But a seat is an address, not a position. What is the continental ask now that the gavel has gone? Who is drafting it? Against whose measures is it scored? If our agenda moves only when an African state holds the presidency, what we have is access. Presence without a standing ask is simply attendance, easy to grant and easy to ignore.

This matters to my own field. Decisions that set the price of nature-how biodiversity is financed, whether ecosystem services are valued as assets or treated as charity, what a sovereign pays to borrow-reach far beyond environment ministries. They are shaped in the G20 and the international financial institutions. A continent under-represented where such decisions are made will be undervalued, however accurately it is drawn.

The next ask should be large and expensive, and our tolerance for a long, contested negotiation must match it. We will be told no more than once.

Globally, roughly 30 times more money is spent destroying nature than protecting it, according to the UN Environment Programme’s State of Finance for Nature reporting. This is why the language of sovereign wealth matters.

Africans are not incidental occupants of a valuable landscape. We are its custodians, and custodianship is expertise: knowing what a watershed does for a city four hundred kilometres downstream, what a migration corridor means to a herd and the economy it feeds, which soils recover after a bad year and which never do.

A standing forest, an intact rangeland, a functioning river basin are sovereign assets. The nations holding them are owed what any asset holder is owed. Not gratitude. Not conditionality. The ordinary presumption that what you hold is worthwhile and that you have a say in how it is used.

The map is corrected. We will be shown at the size we have always been. Being seated at the weight we have always carried is a separate negotiation-and unlike the map, it will not be free.

Banks and payment platforms such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money will be required to share customer data among themselves and licensed third parties, ushering in open banking in Kenya.

The Treasury and the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) have jointly prepared a Bill that seeks to introduce open finance, where customers give third-party providers permission to access and use their payment-account data held by banks and other payment providers.

This would allow new financial services, triggering competition, innovation, and customer empowerment in the banking and financial sectors, ultimately lowering costs.

The National Payment System Bill, 2026, will also empower the CBK to force payment service providers, including different banks, mobile money networks, digital wallets, and payment platforms, to allow their platforms to communicate and exchange funds securely with one another.

This would make it easier for Kenyans to money and use financial services across banks, mobile-money wallets and fintech platforms, regardless of their payment service provider.

‘Each payment service provider or payment system operator shall use systems that are capable of securely sharing customer data with third parties for open finance purposes,’ the Bill says.

‘The central bank may require a payment service provider or payment system operator to implement a mechanism to securely share customer data with third parties after obtaining the customer’s consent.’

Payment service providers handle customer-facing transactions, such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money.

Payment system operators own the underlying infrastructure for settling funds between financial institutions and include firms like Pesalink.

The open finance push will upend how banks and fintechs use customers’ data.

Presently, banks and platforms like M-Pesa keep customers’ transaction data in their vaults.

With open banking, customers can grant permission for fintech apps, other banks, or service providers to access this data.

The new Bill would require banks, mobile money providers and other payment companies to build systems that can securely share a customer’s data with other licensed companies, as long as the customer agrees to it.

This is important because it could break the grip that big players like banks and M-Pesa have on customer relationships.

Presently, startups or fintechs seeking to innovate and launch fresh products struggle to get a full financial picture of consumers.

Under the new Bill, a licensed fintech could pull customer data directly from banks or mobile wallets should the users consent.

The Bill does not specify on how access would work and says the CBK ‘shall make regulations to give effect to this section.’

Details on what data can be accessed, under what conditions, and at what cost would be left to subsequent CBK regulations.

Critics of open banking argue that it can lead to greater security risk and exploitation of consumers.

The first open banking regulations were introduced by the European Union in 2015, and many other countries have since followed suit.

Nigeria is a pioneer of open banking in Africa.

If Kenya’s Parliament passes the law, players will have one year to comply with the new requirements.

‘Upon the commencement of this Act, any person providing payment services shall, within one year of the commencement, comply with the provisions of this Act,’ the Bill says.

The draft would also compel all financial and payment service providers to use systems compatible with competitors’ systems as part of a renewed interoperability push.

‘Each payment service provider or payment system operator shall use systems that are interoperable with the systems used by other payment service providers and payment system operators, and their agents,’ the Bill says.

The proposed law requires issuers of electronic money and providers of digital wallets such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money to hold all money received from customers in a trust account at a commercial bank or a microfinance bank.

‘The monies held in a trust account shall be held in a bank licensed under the Banking Act or a microfinance bank licensed under the Microfinance Act,’ the Bill says.

The money in the trust accounts would only be invested in Kenyan government securities or held in interest-bearing trust accounts at a bank or microfinance bank.

This is intended to ensure that electronic money or wallet balance is backed by funds held separately in trust.

‘The balances in the trust account shall not at any time be less than what is owed to the customers,’ the proposed law adds.

An officer of a payment service provider or payment system operator could face a fine of up to Sh3 million for contravening the provisions, rising to Sh5 million for a repeat offence.

A payment service provider or payment system operator could face an administrative fine of up to Sh20 million.

The CBK could impose an additional penalty of up to Sh100,000 for each day or part of a day that a failure or refusal to comply continues.

What happens when a business built on a romantic relationship survives long after the bond itself has collapsed?

The High Court has declined to liquidate a company founded and run by former lovers, instead ordering an independent valuation and buy-out of their shareholding after finding that the breakdown of their relationship had irreparably damaged the management of the business.

In a judgment involving Paradiso Toys Limited, the court found that the collapse of the relationship between shareholders Petra Lettau and Yves Berten had extended beyond their personal lives and negatively affected the company’s affairs.

‘Having considered the circumstances as a whole, I am satisfied that the breakdown of the relationship between the parties has extended beyond their personal differences and affected the manner in which the affairs of the company are conducted,’ the court said.

Ms Lettau, who owns 33.33 per cent of the company, sought to have Paradiso Toys liquidated under Section 424(1)(g) of the Insolvency Act, arguing that she had been unfairly excluded from the company’s affairs after her relationship with Mr Berten ended.

The court, however, held that liquidation would be too drastic a remedy because there was an adequate alternative available under the Companies Act and the Insolvency Act.

‘Although the court must resist the temptation to resolve matters of a failed personal relationship through company law, it must equally resist the corresponding temptation of pretending that the personal relationship is irrelevant where the company was itself built upon it,’ the judge said.

The court noted that the parties’ personal and corporate lives had been closely intertwined. They jointly incorporated Paradiso Toys Limited, served as shareholders and directors, and operated the Zum Zum Beach House business through the company.

The company’s property also housed the residence they shared during their relationship.

‘In other words, the line between their partnership and separate corporate dealings under the company was a thin one,’ the court observed.

According to court records, Ms Lettau said she was an original subscriber to the company and remained a shareholder holding 33.33 per cent of its issued shares.

She told the court that she invested about 500,000 euros from the sale of a property known as Turtle Beach House into the development of the company’s hospitality business, which includes six guest rooms, a presidential suite and a residential wing.

Ms Lettau claimed that after the relationship deteriorated in 2021, Mr Berten excluded her from the management of the company, removed her from decision-making, cut off her access to funds and eventually forced her out of the premises where she had lived.

She further alleged that she was removed as a director through an extraordinary general meeting held in April 2022 without being served with notice of the meeting.

The shareholder also complained that she was subsequently excluded from annual general meetings and denied access to company records despite retaining her shareholding.

In 2024, Mr Berten offered to purchase her shares for 100,000 euros, with part of the amount payable immediately and the balance through monthly instalments. Ms Lettau rejected the offer and instead proposed an independent valuation of the company.

She argued that the cumulative effect of her exclusion from management, the breakdown of trust, and the inability to secure a fair exit justified the liquidation of the company.

Mr Berten opposed the petition, maintaining that the dispute stemmed from the collapse of the parties’ romantic relationship rather than any oppression in the management of the company.

He denied diverting company revenue or concealing company accounts and argued that Ms Lettau had voluntarily disengaged from the business.

The businessperson further maintained that the company remained solvent and operational and that liquidation would unfairly affect employees, clients and ongoing business obligations.

The court agreed that there had been a complete breakdown of trust between the shareholders but found that liquidation was not the most appropriate remedy.

‘While the evidence presented before this Court does not outrightly classify the Respondent’s actions as burdensome, harsh and wrongful to meet the criteria of oppression, I do find that the manner in which the affairs of this closely held company have evolved following the breakdown between the parties has become unfairly prejudicial to the Petitioner’s interests as a member,’ the judge said.

The court found that the relationship had irretrievably broken down and that there was no realistic prospect of the parties managing the company together in a mutually beneficial manner.

It therefore ordered an independent valuation of the company and the parties’ shareholding by a firm of certified public accountants to be agreed upon within 30 days. If they fail to agree, the chief executive officer of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) will nominate the valuer.

Once the valuation is completed, Mr Berten will have the first right to buy Ms Lettau’s 33.33 per cent stake. If he declines, Ms Lettau will have the option of purchasing Mr Berten’s 66.66 per cent shareholding at the value determined by the same valuation.

An analyst in Nairobi has not yet logged off at 2:47 am. His monitors are cluttered with over four thousand alerts he has yet to review. Elsewhere on the network an automated process has, in less than four seconds and without so much as a line of hand-typed code, completed its ten-thousandth probe for the night.

We have long worked under the premise that human speed put a limit on cyber risk. There were typos in phishing attempts, or odd links; a failed login would be recorded in the logs; fraudsters would leave a trail for auditors to follow. We put in place access controls and third-party audits and felt we had the threat in check.

The attacks of today don’t make grammatical errors. They come through in perfect English, crafted from open-source data to suit your organisation before you have even read the subject line. They will reference actual supplier contracts to a finance team or copy an internal tone to get past the scepticism.

Consider what happened last month with OpenAI’s agents. They found an undocumented hole in an internal registry, made their way out of a controlled setting and into Hugging Face production systems where millions of developers work.

On their own, these agents forged authentication tokens, set up covert channels on public sites and walked away with 136 live credentials. Containment is tenuous even at the top AI labs; an adversary will be nothing if not bold.

A person can handle an incident or two by hand but cannot keep up with unrelenting automation. To expect human teams to do so is to court burnout. This is a gap in governance we are overlooking.

There is no working around it. One has to answer the adversary’s tools with one’s own. That means having AI-powered intelligence to sort through thousands of alerts in a matter of seconds, to spot a deepfake or synthetic voice as it happens and to watch for anomalies while the rest of the team is at rest.

Do not view this as some optional IT cost to be cut when the books are reviewed. It is the kind of infrastructure required for compliance and to keep the trust of customers. These days, from Africa to the rest of the world, there are no silos in technology. A breach in a customer platform or financial rail will be felt by regulators and partners in an instant.

The board has to ask itself: when an AI attack comes for us, will we be in a position to contain it, or are we left to deal with the damage to our name and finances? We ought to be in companies that put money behind their defences rather than let disruption make the call.

Cyber risk is no longer a box to tick for compliance. Treat it as one, and it is a gamble, not with budget, but with trust, and trust carries no line item to replace it once lost. Lose it, and what follows is not an entry in a ledger. It is the slow, quiet exit of customers, partners and investors who no longer believe the organisation can keep its word.

The threat does not wait for the next budget cycle. Neither can we. Our capital and our defences must move at the speed of the threat, starting now.

There is a piece of meat sitting at the back of the freezer you may have probably forgotten about. Perhaps it was bought in bulk, divided into portions and packed away. It could be a packet of beef bought months ago and pushed behind newer groceries.

Or may be it is that piece of chicken you cannot remember when it was bought.

Is it still safe to eat? Most people would assume that if frozen, it is fine.

Dr Ronald Okindo, Assistant Director at the Directorate of Veterinary Services, says frozen meat can remain safe for long, but texture, taste, appearance and overall quality can deteriorate. Chilling should be at -2 and 2 degrees Celsius.

‘You can keep your product for a month or three months, though it also depends on the product,’ he says.

Freezing takes the temperature much lower. Dr Okindo says products like poultry should first be deep frozen at -18 degrees Celsius and below for at least 24 hours before being moved to chilling.

Choose if beef should be chilled or frozen, depending on when you intend to use it.

‘For deep freezing, the temperature goes deep into the product. The product will stay safe even for a year as long as it is still frozen or in a chiller,’ he says.

The home freezer is not the same as a commercial cold chain. Dr Okindo says the difference is how consistently the temperature is maintained.

‘There is quality assurance on temperature regulations in the food industry. We take records of every temperature every hour. If there is a drop in temperature, adjustments must be made,’ he says.

The process is less controlled at home.

‘There are times someone just opens the freezer. You are not very careful with maintaining temperature. The idea here is maintaining the temperature as low as possible,’ he says.

Every time the freezer door is opened, warm air enters. Placing warm food into the freezer can also affect its temperature.

Whole beef steak can retain good quality for six to 12 months while beef and lamb roasts can stay for four to 12 months. Diced beef and lamb have a shorter quality window of four to six months.

Chicken can retain good quality for up to a year when frozen whole, while chicken pieces can go to about nine months.

Minced meat has a shorter freezer-quality window of three to four months because grinding exposes a much larger surface area to air.

Dr Okindo puts the maximum freezing period for processed meat at about six months, compared with up to two years for some raw meats under appropriate frozen storage.

Does meat become unsafe if it remains frozen for years?

‘When meat is frozen for a long time, the quality will be intact. However, taste may be compromised. In terms of bacterial growth, it will stay safe as long as it is there,’ he says.

Freezing stops bacteria from multiplying as they do at warmer temperatures, but Dr Okindo says it does not magically restore meat to its original condition. Poor packaging, repeated temperature changes and prolonged storage can affect texture, taste and appearance.

Another confusing thing is opening the freezer and finding meat that no longer appears like it did when it was put there. The surface may have turned pale or developed dry whitish areas.

Dr Okindo says this can be freezer burn, which affects appearance and quality but does not mean the meat is contaminated.

‘Freezer burn is when there is an overexposure to very cold temperatures in an organ,’ he says, giving the example of liver.

‘That is, especially, when the exposure is in a chain or crate, for instance. That contact between the crate and the organ sometimes shows the lines of the crate. The meat configures with the crate, sometimes turning whitish,’ he says.

Freezer burn can occur when an organ is exposed directly to freezing conditions without going through chilling.

‘Normally after slaughter, you take the meat to the chiller and then to the freezer and deep freezing,’ he says.

‘If you take it randomly or quickly, it gets that burn. That, however, does not mean it is contaminated or that it is bad meat. It is only not good-looking,’ Dr Okindo says.

Perhaps the bigger risk comes when the meat leaves the freezer. The food expert recommends moving frozen meat into the chiller to thaw gradually.

‘Once you get it from the freezer, it is always good to take it to the chiller,’ he says.

For large quantity, this may take about a day before the meat is thawed completely.

Some people will place frozen meat in water, use hot water or leave it on the kitchen counter.

‘When you thaw and wait for it to be cooked tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you are activating the bacteria that were asleep and inactive. They will start becoming active then you can easily get food poisoning,’ Dr Okindo says.

He also warns that rapid thawing can affect the quality of the meat.

‘If you want to cook immediately, quick thawing affects the integrity of the structure of the meat. The taste will not be the same,’ he says.

What about freezing it again? Dr Okindo says it can, but repeated thawing and freezing can affect quality and longevity.

‘It can be frozen, but remember, the life of that meat will not be like the other,’ he says.

Once meat has thawed, micro-organisms from the environment can multiply if it is kept at temperatures that allow bacterial growth.

‘It means if you freeze the meat again, you affect its integrity and quality in terms of safety. Longevity will not be the same,’ he says.

The safest approach is to portion meat before freezing so that you only thaw what is to be cooked.

According to Dr Okindo, the freezing period for beef, goat, lamb and poultry can be considerably longer than many households assume.

‘They can be frozen for long. These kinds of meat can be frozen even for two years,’ he says.

Many households wonder if they should wash meat before freezing it. Dr Okindo says this is not necessary, especially if the meat has been handled properly.

‘It is not necessarily. Sometimes the water used on the meat might not be very clean. You could be introducing bacteria to the meat again,’ he says.

He adds that there are established hygiene procedures at regulated slaughterhouses.

‘If you do it properly, you don’t need to clean,’ he says.

He adds that if consumers insist on washing the meat, the water should be potable.

‘Potable water is clean and has no microbials. If you are sure you are using clean water, then that is okay. If if is not clean, then you will be introducing bacteria or microbials to the meat,’ he says.

Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote is seeking to raise Sh200.8 billion ($1.55 billion) in exchange for three percent equity in his Nigerian refinery business.

The initial public offering (IPO) in Nigeria has drawn widespread interest from not just the country but across the continent with the multi-billionaire businessman receiving a multitude of queries on how investors in other parts of Africa including Kenya can be part of the region’s largest IPO.

Dangote is selling 4.1 billion shares, representing a three percent stake in the Lagos based Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Freezone Enterprise at a cost of Sh49.25, about 38 US cents or 525 Naira.

Proceeds from the IPO will be applied in scaling the firm’s processing facility/oil refinery, doubling its capacity from the current 700,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day.

Why has the IPO generated significant interest from Kenyan investors?

Kenyan investors have warmed up to the Dangote refinery IPO based largely on two main factors.

The billionaire businessman initially mulled cross-listing the IPO across five other African exchanges including Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana and Rwanda bringing the firm’s listing to the country’s doorstep.

Outside of the IPO, Dangote chose Kenya as the site for his next project-an East African oil refinery in Lamu. The announcement of this project, which is set for ground breaking shortly, has catapulted the billionaire businessman into the consciousness of Kenyans.

Dangote was previously the subject of much interest and intrigue in Kenya when he previously expressed interest in purchasing the Arsenal Football Club from its current majority owners-the Kroenke family from the US. Dangote is a fan of the North-London based sports franchise.

Why hasn’t Dangote sold the refinery at the NSE?

Despite harbouring plans of cross-listing the IPO, Dangote’s refinery will be listed in Nigeria with sources attributing the sole exchange listing to complexities involved in floating the company across five other exchanges at the same time.

The planned cross listing would have for instance required multiple regulatory approvals simultaneously, a difficult feat which would have likely delayed Dangote’s fund raising.

Does that mean that I can’t access the IPO from Kenya?

No. While the IPO is not approved or publicised in Kenya, investors can get in on the offer through private placements which entails individuals accessing the floated shares under the foreign investors window.

Several local brokers including AXYS Investment Bank have partnered with leading brokers in Nigeria to make the offer available to its clients in Kenya. Others such as Kestrel Capital are also working to offer similar access.

Are there other ways of accessing the IPO?

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) are both working on a more direct solution to accessing the Dangote IPO before its October 13, 2026, closure date.

Once approved by the CMA, the solution would turn the Dangote IPO to a public offering in Kenya, bringing the transaction to a wider investor base in the country.

How many of the 4.1 billion shares can I buy?

The IPO minimum subscription is 10 offer shares, but no maximum is set, implying that only the allotment criteria, which is to be determined after the close of the IPO, can limit one’s access to more shares in the offer.

For a Kenyan investor, the minimum subscription implies one would have to invest at least Sh492.50 to access the IPO.

Under private placement however, the minimum threshold is higher as local brokers primarily go for high net worth/sophisticated investors. AXYS Investment Bank for instance has set the minimum subscription at Sh258,920 ($2,000) with the last day of subscriptions set at October 7.

Where will the purchased shares trade?

Shares from the Dangote IPO will be domiciled in the Nigerian Stock Exchange where they will trade after the offer closes. The shares could eventually trade on other exchanges including the NSE if the firm is cross-listed.

Dangote has hinted that the subsequent cross-listing of the company is on the cards, including overseas options like London and New York.

What would an NSE cross-listing mean?

The cross-listing of the Dangote refinery at the NSE would allow Kenyan investors to buy and subsequently sell shares in the firm on local currency terms while giving them closer visibility on trading. Cross-listing is widely seen as a move to address investor concerns including the possibility of foreign exchange losses which would occur presently from the conversion of Kenya shillings to dollars and Nairas, and the vice-versa.

Why has the Capital Markets Authority cautioned investors about the IPO?

Cognisant of the potential for fraudulent platforms posing as genuine brokers to the IPO, the CMA has advised investors to independently verify veracity and source of any prospectus or other offering document before making investment decisions like payments, highlighting widespread public interest in the offer.

Will Dangote list the Lamu refinery in the NSE?

While Dangote has not expressly spoken of listing the soon to be established Lamu refinery, analysts expect the listing of the facility at the NSE down the road, aligning with the billionaire’s goal of deepening the participation and ownership of retail investors in African capital markets.

Separately, Dangote has outlined plans to list each enterprise from his vast business empire which spans oil refining, cement, petrochemicals, sugar, salt and fertiliser.

In the pursuit of a career, what’s the value of a name? A former National Youth Service (NYS) procurement officer has spent nearly a decade trying to clear his name in court after parliamentary findings linked him to procurement irregularities at the agency.

Henrick Nyongesa, who was NYS principal supply chain management officer, had challenged findings by the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), arguing that the committee unfairly held him responsible for irregularities and failed to give him a proper opportunity to defend himself.

He also sought damages for lost employment, pension and other benefits, as well as damage to his reputation and career prospects.

But the High Court has dismissed his petition, finding that Mr Nyongesa was given a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations against him.

Justice Lawrence Mugambi ruled that although Parliament’s oversight powers are subject to constitutional scrutiny, the evidence did not show that the committee had breached Mr Nyongesa’s right to a fair process.

‘The doctrine of separation of powers does not immunise constitutional infractions,’ Justice Mugambi said.

The case dates back to 2016, when PAC investigated NYS following media reports of alleged financial misappropriation. The inquiry followed a special audit of the agency’s accounts.

The committee examined several disputed transactions, including Sh791 million for a Kibera road project, Sh609 million in supply payments and an attempted Sh695 million procurement.

It also examined allegations involving forged Supplies Branch contracts, consultancy and publicity contracts, and a Sh12.5 million double payment to Consulting House.

PAC eventually found Mr Nyongesa culpable as head of procurement, accusing him of approving transactions based on forged contracts, fraudulent payments through the government’s Integrated Financial Management Information System and other procurement breaches.

Mr Nyongesa disputed the findings. He argued that changes in the government procurement structure had altered the way NYS procurement decisions were supervised and made the department vulnerable to interference. He said Cabinet secretaries had assumed powers previously exercised by principal secretaries, while advisers were deployed to government departments and senior procurement officials were frequently transferred.

He also told the court that he had reported suspected irregularities to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission before he was confronted by the then Cabinet Secretary in November 2014 and later issued with a show-cause letter.

His main complaint, however, was about how PAC handled the inquiry.

Mr Nyongesa acknowledged appearing before the committee on October 18 and October 26, 2016, and submitting a written response.

But he argued that he was not given a chance to respond to some of the specific allegations that later appeared in the committee’s findings.

For example, he said he was questioned about documents supporting the Sh609 million in payments but was not asked to respond to allegations that the contracts behind the payments were forged.

He also said the Sh12.5 million double payment and the attempted Sh695 million procurement were not put to him during the hearings.

His lawyers argued that the committee had therefore violated his right to fair administrative action. They also said PAC had misunderstood his role in the procurement process.

The National Assembly and its Clerk rejected those claims. They told the court that Mr Nyongesa had been invited to appear before PAC twice and had been asked to provide a comprehensive written response. The committee, they said, considered both his written submissions and oral evidence before reaching its findings.

They also disputed his claim that the parliamentary findings had caused him to lose his employment.

The respondents pointed out that Mr Nyongesa had already left NYS before appearing before PAC and had later acknowledged that he was working as a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

The National Assembly further told the court that Mr Nyongesa was convicted in October 2024 of making a false document and breach of trust by a public servant.

The criminal case was separate from the constitutional petition, which focused on the parliamentary inquiry and the fairness of the process.

Mr Nyongesa filed the constitutional petition in June 2017, asking the High Court to quash PAC’s adverse findings and stop any further action based on them.

He also sought general damages for damage to his reputation and special damages for lost salary, employment benefits, pension contributions and professional opportunities.

Dismissing the petition, Justice Mugambi said the record showed that Mr Nyongesa had been given opportunities to appear before PAC and respond to matters under investigation.

‘The record establishes that the petitioner was accorded two separate opportunities to appear before the Public Accounts Committee,’ the judge said.

The judge also rejected the argument that Mr Nyongesa had been questioned on only a narrow part of the inquiry.

‘I find it highly improbable that a committee that had sanctioned a Special Audit which unearthed many procurement-related irregularities would summon the Head of Procurement on two distinct occasions to discuss only one issue,’ Justice Mugambi said.

The court concluded that Mr Nyongesa had been given a meaningful opportunity to respond to the issues before the committee and dismissed the petition without awarding damages.

It also made no order on costs, citing the length of the case, which had been before the court since 2017, and the time and resources spent by both sides.

The judgment brings to an end Mr Nyongesa’s constitutional challenge, although his career has continued to be a central part of the dispute.

He joined government as a supplies officer in 1994 and went on to become a senior procurement official at NYS before later working as a university lecturer.

His lawyers had argued that the parliamentary findings disrupted a 23-year public-service career and affected his future professional opportunities.

The court, however, found no legal basis to award the damages he sought.

When Diana Wakhungu’s customers outside Kenya place an order with her online shop, the product journey does not end with a click on the ‘buy’ button.

Ms Wakhungu runs Brinax, a purely online business with a pickup point in Kenya, selling to customers both locally and in other countries.

But while her Kenyan customers can collect their orders locally, international customers have to rely on extra shipping costs.

Brinax imports its products directly into Kenya, where they are received, cleared, and made available to its Kenyan customers.

‘Most of our customers are Kenyan, but we also have customers in other countries. The challenge is that when we import our products, they come directly into Kenya, which makes it easier and cheaper for our Kenyan customers,’ she says.

Ms Wakhungu says a courier operating from Nairobi, for instance, currently goes for about Sh2,300 to send a parcel of up to 5 kilogrammes to Kampala, Sh2,520 to Dar es Salaam and Sh2,600 to Kigali, with the delivery taking between one and three days.

‘A Sh5,000 product sent to Kampala can have a shipping charge that is almost half its value before payment charges, taxes, duties or clearance costs are factored in. For a Sh2,000 item, the shipping charge alone can be more than the value of the product,’ she says.

The problem is not unique to small traders. Online health platform MyDawa, which has expanded its digital healthcare business into Uganda, has suffered the cross-border challenges.

‘You don’t take an online business across a border, you build a second business,’ says Priscilla Mahui, country director at MyDawa.

‘Uganda taught us that almost nothing transfers: you need a separate legal entity, separate pharmacy licensing and product registration, local inventory, a local pharmacist workforce, and a separate payments integration because M-Pesa Kenya doesn’t clear in Kampala. What transfers is the software, the operating playbook and the supplier relationships.’

The cost of crossing a border

Ms Mahui says compliance comes before payments and delivery when expanding into a new market.

‘Compliance is a fixed cost that doesn’t shrink with volume. Payments are next because every country needs its own rails, its own reconciliation, and its own failure modes. Delivery is manageable once you hold stock locally; it’s only crippling if you try to ship from Nairobi,’ she says.

She adds that another cost that businesses often underestimate is not captured on a courier invoice.

‘Customer acquisition is high but not structurally different from Kenya. Returns barely feature; pharma doesn’t take returns. The cost people underrate is management attention, which is the second country consumes senior time disproportionate to its revenue.’

The steep delivery costs are putting off some customers.

‘It isn’t just that the courier costs more than the order, it’s that the whole stack on duty, clearance, courier, payment friction, and the customer’s uncertainty about whether it will arrive makes a basket uneconomic below a threshold most consumers never reach.’ Ms Mahui says.

‘The result is that Kenyan online businesses serve the diaspora buying for family back home and serve neighbouring markets only once they’ve set up locally. Genuine consumer cross-border commerce for low-ticket goods barely exists in East Africa,’ she adds.

The payment problem

Timothy Were, Director of ICT at the State Department for Trade, says Kenyan SMEs have embraced e-commerce but still face difficulties when money has to move across borders.

‘Kenyan SMEs have really taken to e-commerce. However, there are challenges and barriers. One of the challenges that we have is the ease of sending and receiving payment across borders,’ Mr Were says.

‘The conversion of currency and the banking requirements take several days, and the commissions are also very high.’

A Kenyan customer can pay a local merchant through a mobile wallet within seconds. But the same transaction becomes more complicated when the seller or buyer is in another country.

Ms Mahui says that mobile money is both an advantage and a weakness when Kenyan businesses expand regionally. ‘It’s an advantage in capability since Kenyan teams know how to build for wallets, USSD, agent networks and payment-on-delivery, and that muscle transfers to any market where cash still dominates,’ she says.

Read: Demand for faster speeds reshapes Kenya’s internet market

‘It’s a weakness in rails: M-Pesa Kenya, MTN MoMo Uganda and Airtel Money don’t clear against each other for merchant collections at scale, so every market is a fresh integration and a fresh treasury problem, collecting in one currency, paying suppliers in another, and eating the FX spread,’ she adds.

She says this means the existence of regional payment initiatives does not necessarily translate into a solution for individual businesses.

‘The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) exists on paper; I haven’t seen it change a single one of our reconciliations yet.’

Mr Were says businesses also struggle with trust when dealing with customers or suppliers in other countries.

‘The other issue that challenges SMEs in e-commerce is the issue of trust where we have goods and even services getting lost, not being paid for by people on the other side since it’s difficult to verify.’

He says absence of digital identification systems that work across borders makes it harder to establish trust.

Businesses also have to contend with quality standards, customs procedures, and the physical infrastructure required to deliver an online order.

‘Apart from that, we also have issues of low-quality goods that may not be acceptable across borders. Our infrastructure is also not very well developed. The inter-country infrastructure and also the last-mile fulfilment. So, that is another challenge that the SMEs face as they try to deliver their goods across.’ Mr Were says.

The list extends to the differing customs regimes, informal roadblocks by law enforcers and costly logistics.

Kenya is also pursuing digital trade integration through the East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The State Department for Trade says Comesa launched a Digital Retail Payment Platform in 2025 that aimed at reducing the cost of cross-border digital payments for MSMEs.

At the EAC level, Mr Were says efforts include electronic cargo tracking and work to remove non-tariff barriers.

‘Through the one-stop border post, there are systems that have been implemented. In East Africa, we have the regional electronic cargo tracking system that helps in the flow of goods.’

At continental level, he says AfCFTA is also working towards digital systems that can simplify identification, payments, and customs.

‘Through the ADAPT programme, they are currently working on having trade corridors between the countries that will simplify identification, that will simplify payments and also simplify customs procedures using digital systems between different countries.’

The SME opportunity

Despite the obstacles, the opportunity for Kenyan businesses is huge.

Mr Were says agriculture is still an important area, particularly if Kenya shifts from exporting raw commodities towards processed products.

‘There is very big growth in the digital services area. These include business process outsourcing, development of software, financial services, insurance services, and remote health services. These also have big potential and are growing exponentially. We are looking at about 10 percent of the exports coming from those e-commerce.’

Kenya is also developing a Digital Services Export Strategy intended to position the country as a leading exporter of digital services in Africa and beyond. The strategy is being developed alongside the National E-Commerce Strategy 2023-2027.

However, Ms Mahui believes that Kenya’s biggest export opportunity may not necessarily be physical products.

‘On what Kenya can export: not products; services and operating models. Kenya’s edge is in tech-enabled service delivery: telehealth, chronic-care management, fintech-embedded commerce, logistics software.’

‘Our competitors in Kampala aren’t Kenyan pharmacies; they are local chains; what we bring is the platform that sits on top of them. That’s the exportable asset,’ she adds.

Building an SME e-commerce community

It is against this backdrop that the Kenya E-commerce Alliance is seeking to build a more organised private-sector voice.

Martin Mwili, convenor of the Kenya E-commerce Alliance (KECA) and CEO at TEKI, says the industry has lacked a structured association through which businesses could collectively engage policymakers.

‘One of the things that we realised is that there exists no community for e-commerce players and a vibrant community for that matter, a community that can engage all the different stakeholders, and that is why this event is important,’ Mr Mwili says.

The official says KECA is seeking partnerships with players in Uganda, South Africa and Germany to create market linkages for Kenyan businesses.

‘But these traders need linkages, so we’ve been able to connect with players from different parts of Africa, including Uganda, South Africa and Germany, and we’re also negotiating with more players to make sure that as we get into collaborations and partnerships, our local traders can access markets by collaborating with our partners.’ Mr Mwili says.

Kenya’s banking sector is seeing a renewed demand for clerical workers as lenders expand their branch networks, reversing the recent shift toward hiring management and higher-skilled positions.

Data from the Central Bank of Kenya shows clerical employment jumped 21.3 percent or 2,588 to 14,757 in 2025 from 12,169 a year earlier, marking the biggest annual increase in the category since 2013 when jobs in this category rose by 2,645.

The rise accounted for 92 percent of the new openings created in Kenya’s banking sector as supervisory and management jobs dropped by 303 and 224, respectively.

The category of secretarial and other staff added 223 jobs, taking the net rise in staff numbers in the country’s banking sector to 41,124 from 38,840.

Clerical jobs had dipped for two straight years, shedding 720 positions in the process. However, the latest growth has taken their staff count above that of managerial ones by 2,574 compared with the previous year when they were below by 238.

The clerical jobs comeback was as the number of bank branches increased to 1,611 from 1,573, making room for more traditional banking roles as lenders increase their physical presence.

Many banks have been reassessing the role of physical branches following years of investment in mobile banking, internet platforms, agency banking and other digital channels.

The comeback of clerical jobs suggest that traditional banking roles could be finding a new place within a more technology-driven sector. Many lenders have been enriching the role of clerical employees to include advisory roles as they race for individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises across the counties.

Banks had shed 43 branches in 2021 on the back of Covid-19 disruptions but have since opened 152 over the past four years as more lenders search for customers across counties and satellite towns.

The latest staff figures mark a change from the longer-term direction of the banking industry, where management positions have steadily gained ground while clerical jobs have remained relatively subdued.

Clerical jobs had peaked in 2014 at 18,539 when management jobs were 9,584. However, banks shed 7,401 clerical jobs in six years to 2020 as they hired 806 and 1,118 additional management supervisory employees.

The clerical openings had grown by a lower pace between 2020 and 2024, adding 1,031 jobs compared with 17,93 management and 1,140 supervisory roles over the same period. Last year’s recovery of clerical jobs therefore represents a reversal in the balance between the three categories.

The figures point to a banking workforce that is becoming more diverse as lenders combine digital channels with renewed physical distribution.

Towns such as Ruiru, Kikuyu, Thika, Karuri, Ongata Rongai, Juja and Kitengela have recorded population growth, encouraging banks, microfinance institutions and saccos to establish physical outlets.

As businesses expand beyond Nairobi and traditional urban centres, banks are positioning branches closer to entrepreneurs who need working capital, asset finance, trade finance and other services that often require more interaction with banking staff.

Branches remain key for activities requiring face-to-face interaction, including customer acquisition, relationship management, account opening, lending and other services that may not be fully delivered through digital platforms.

KCB Bank Kenya, Equity Bank Kenya, Co-operative Bank of Kenya and NCBA are among the lenders who have been opening new branches, with each now having more than 100 branches in the country. Family Bank, which currently has 98 branches, plans to join the 100-plus branch club before the end of the year.

The expansion of physical outlets has therefore created demand for customer-facing and operational staff even as technology continues to reduce the need for some traditional back-office functions.

Banks pursuing mass-market customers see wider branch network giving them visibility and credibility in new markets while providing a physical point of contact for customers who are less comfortable with fully digital financial services.

The role of branches is also shifting from traditional transaction points to advisory and relationship-management centres. Lenders increasingly use their outlets to guide customers on investments, borrowing, insurance, wealth management and business financing.

The advisory role is particularly key for SMEs, where lending decisions depend on an understanding of the business, its cash flows and growth prospects.

Continued investment in branches, however, comes against accelerating digital adoption, which has made many routine banking transactions possible without visiting a branch.

Mobile money, banking apps, internet banking and agency banking have reduced the need for physical access for services such as high-volume low-value loan applications, cash transfers, payments, balance enquiries and bill settlement.