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The government projects Sh2.7billion savings in reforestation costs as it moves to open up public forests to private investors as part of a strategy to maximise returns from the fast-growing industry through concession deals.

Concession agreements give an individual or organisation the right to use a specific area in a national or county forest by means of a long-term contract for commercial forest management and use.

Regulated Saccos recruited over 637,696 new members last year as deposits crossed the Sh700 billion mark, pointing to the sustained interest of Kenyans in co-operatives.

Latest industry data shows the 177 deposit-taking (DT) Saccos and 178 non-withdrawable deposit-taking (NWDT) Saccos under Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) supervision, saw their membership rise by 26.3 percent from 504,915 in 2023.

In rural Kenya, the daily ritual of cooking is a battle against time and soot – mothers gathering firewood, smoke from cooking fire filling homes, clothes and lungs coated in layers of ash, painting the walls black.

It is the life of 90 percent of households; millions of people, in what is a quiet struggle for a clean flame. So, how can they move away from the choking, billowing smoke to clean fuels?

Policymakers are grappling with how to re-engineer county governments to drive the clean energy agenda and unlock the potential of renewable sources like solar and geothermal, not just for power grids, but for homes and small businesses.

This is a subtle acknowledgment that national-level solution is not enough; there’s need to empower counties to close the gap from the ground up.

The journey toward a cleaner energy future is already underway, but there are challenges that counties, investors, and other players face.

A year ago, the government began implementing the LPG Growth Strategy, an initiative to transition 80 percent of the population from biomass to clean LPG by 2026.

The strategy aims to boost the per capita LPG consumption from 6.5 kg to 15 kg by 2030 by upgrading the infrastructure, introducing LPG for schools, availing subsidised cylinders, and enacting legal and regulatory reforms.

While LPG uptake within urban centres has made tremendous gains, rural areas still lag due to reported county regulatory barriers.

Investors say county levies are exorbitant and often come in multiple forms-from branding, parking, and licence fees to business permits. They cite hostility from county and law enforcement officials.

Counties need to generate revenue, but they also need to keep energy prices affordable to promote adoption.

The Energy Regulatory Authority is urging counties to adopt incentives like Time-of-Use tariffs to reduce operational costs and drive industrial growth, and partner with the private sector on captive energy generation and storage.

According to Dr Stephen Ikiki, Senior Economist, National Treasury, inter-county collaborations could help unlock innovative financing models, such as blended finance or green bonds. This approach would allow counties to attract and negotiate large-scale sustainable energy investments, weaving them directly into their budgets.

Counties have a different story. For instance, in Kilifi County, Mr Wilfred Baya, the Director of Energy, shared how the county is empowering communities to lead the charge.

They have adopted a community-driven model where former charcoal sellers are now the biggest LPG investors and ambassadors. The county is also allocating land for LPG refill infrastructure and considering new policy incentives to stimulate investment. These efforts are making energy a central part of the County Integrated Development Plan.

The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) is supporting the transition through regulation that bolsters business operations for solutions like Autogas, smart LPG meters, and reticulation, says Stella Opakas, Deputy Director Mid and Downstream Petroleum.

The Energy (Integrated National Energy Plan) Regulations, 2025, have been gazetted to enhance energy access and reliability in counties through the integrated national energy planning committee that draws representation from the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, Council of Governors, Epra and sector agencies.

One of its primary tasks is to track implementation of the county energy plans and the integrated national energy plan. The challenge now is finding the right balance.

A judge has reprimanded Kenya Power for repeatedly violating a former employee’s rights by subjecting her to repeated temporary three-month job contracts for eight years.

Employment and Labour Relations Court Judge James Rika said offering short-term contracts to employees for prolonged periods is casualisation of labour, which deprives workers of job security and terminal benefits due to permanent and pensionable employees.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has faulted Consolidated Bank of Kenya for the unfair dismissal of one of its business development officers over allegations of improper loan approvals totalling Sh102 million.

Justice Monica Mbaru stated that it was improper for the bank to hold Emmanuel Wambua responsible for a non-verified asset used to secure the debt, noting further inconsistencies in the lender’s actions.

Shares at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rewarded investors with the highest returns in the third quarter of the year, eclipsing bonds and cash deposits whose gains dropped in the wake of falling interest rates.

During the three months to September, investor wealth at the bourse, as measured by market capitalisation, rose by 15.1 percent, or Sh367.4 billion, to reach Sh2.78 trillion.

As long as domestic borrowing continues to expand, monetary adjustments by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) will remain cosmetic and ineffective.

In Kenya’s current fiscal landscape, the greatest paradox is not simply that the government owes more than it possesses in liquid resources, but that the remedies prescribed to address this imbalance often serve the State more than the people.

When total debt far outpaces cash and cash equivalents, the economy is effectively living on borrowed time, with liquidity shortages constraining the ability of both the government and the private sector to function. According to recent reports, public debt in 2025 has climbed above Sh11 trillion, even as revenue growth remains sluggish and falling short of what is needed to service the debt without sacrificing other obligations.

The Central Bank of Kenya has tried to portray monetary policy as the engine for recovery. Rate cuts, revised loan pricing formulas, and persuasion to commercial banks to reduce lending rates are part of this strategy.

These moves might appear reassuring: in April 2025, the CBK lowered its policy rate by 75 basis points to around 10.00 percent, aiming to stimulate credit growth.

Yet these policy shifts neglect the reality that the state itself remains the chief claimant on domestic capital. When the government continues to issue domestic debt-such as long-term Treasury bonds with coupon rates upward of 13.20 percent to 13.40 percent, and funds being raised at these levels-banks and investors naturally find government securities more attractive and safer than private sector loans.

Private sector credit tells the more concerning side of the story. By December 2024, credit to the private sector stood at Sh3.86 trillion, but growth was negative in Q4, with a 1.4 percent year-on-year decline-even as households, the trade and manufacturing sectors remain important borrowers.

Households took about Sh1,317.4 billion (34.1 percent of private credit), while trade and manufacturing took 16.9 percent and 15.0 percent, respectively.

These figures suggest that demand remains, but the supply of credit is choked-banks are reticent to lend to riskier private actors when government securities provide relatively high, risk-free returns.

In addition, Treasury bill yields, and bond coupon levels remain high, reinforcing what is already obvious: the state is crowding out the private sector.

The result is a vicious cycle where private investment is starved, households and businesses remain credit-constrained, and growth slows. Inflation and borrowing costs remain elevated.

With each round of short-term domestic borrowing, rollover risk increases. The state’s solvency becomes the central concern, not inclusive growth.

Kenya’s path out of this quagmire requires much more than lower rates. Structural reforms are necessary: debt issuance must shift toward long dated, concessional financing; incentives and guarantees need to encourage banks to lend to SMEs and productive sectors; fiscal discipline must be strengthened; and transparency in debt, cash holdings, and liquidity management must improve so that policy signals are credible.

The CBK, as monetary custodian, must act not as the Treasury’s enabler but as a guardian of an inclusive financial system. Unless domestic borrowing is contained, unless the incentives change, CBK’s well-intentioned adjustments will remain cosmetic and ineffective. And unless monetary policy is not aligned with fiscal policy, anything else is a mirage.

Investors demand yields for government securities in double digits, especially for long-term bonds. These attractive rates make lending to government very appealing, while loans to households or small businesses offer less return for more risk. Hence, even though the policy rate is lowered, the transmission to private lending rates is weak.

The high yields on government paper effectively provide a safe harbor for liquidity that might otherwise flow to more productive but riskier private investments.

The logic of cuts in rates or adjustments to pricing formulas assumes that banks will reorient their balance sheets toward growth-oriented lending. But when the state is issuing large volumes of debt-bills and bonds-and offering high rates on government paper, that assumption fails.

Banks are profit-seeking entities; for them, holding government securities is often the lower-risk, higher-return path. Private sector lending suffers not just because of risk or demand but because supply of credit is diverted toward sovereign debt.

This dynamic reveals the deeper contradiction: CBK’s monetary adjustments are less about empowering private growth and more about easing the government’s debt servicing burden.

Debt service is elevated, liquidity margins are thin, and the government depends heavily on domestic borrowing to meet recurrent expenses. Under these conditions, rate cuts and loan formula tweaks are at best marginal relief at worst promotional rhetoric.

My explanation of the size of the Mt Kenya economy on Radio Generations last week elicited many comments on Tiktok. My point? Perspective drives action.

For all our difficulties, Kenya has immense opportunities. We should not squander them, imprisoned by self-pity, recriminations, and name calling. Rather, leaders should reduce their daily political battles, and inspire Kenyans to greatness.

In a move to restore trust in financial reporting, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya will launch the Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) on October 2, 2025.

This transformative tool will revolutionise how audit opinions are authenticated-ushering in a new era of transparency, accountability, and professional integrity.

Every audit report issued by Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK)’s 2,110 authorised assurance providers will now carry a 12-digit UDIN code and a QR code, both uniquely tied to that specific opinion. These identifiers will allow third-party users-procurement officers, regulators, banks, Saccos, and other institutions-to instantly verify the authenticity of any audit report. If a code is missing or invalid, the system will flag it, notify ICPAK, and trigger corrective action. Such reports may be rejected outright, restoring confidence in the audit process and protecting the public from fraudsters.

This innovation is not happening in isolation. ICPAK has benchmarked UDIN against similar systems used by professional accountancy bodies in India, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Singapore.

Among these, India’s Institute of Chartered Accountants-the largest professional accountancy body in the world-stands out as a global success story.

Despite India’s vast geography and complex regulatory landscape, ICAI’s system has proven robust, scalable, and transformative. Kenya now joins this league of forward-thinking nations, embracing technology to uphold professional standards.

But the implications of UDIN go far beyond the accounting profession. This is a wake-up call to other regulated fields-law, architecture, engineering, supply chain, medicine, and beyond. Quacks have infiltrated nearly every sector, eroding public trust and exposing unsuspecting citizens to risk.

Take the legal profession, for example. Many Kenyans have unknowingly engaged individuals posing as advocates-only to discover, often too late, that they were never admitted to the bar. The consequences range from botched cases to lost property and shattered lives. A UDIN-style system, managed by the Law Society of Kenya, could allow the public to verify the legitimacy of legal documents and confirm whether a lawyer is duly registered and licensed to practice.

A simple code, searchable on a public portal, could be the difference between justice and deception.

Architects and engineers, too, face similar challenges.

Rogue practitioners have been known to submit fraudulent drawings, supervise unsafe constructions, or misrepresent their qualifications.

A document authentication system-anchored in professional registers-would empower clients, developers, and regulators to verify credentials before approving plans or releasing payments.

The future of professional practice in Kenya must be secure, transparent, and digitally verified.

Supply chain professionals, especially those involved in procurement and logistics, are increasingly relied upon to uphold ethical standards in public and private sector transactions.

Yet, without a way to verify their standing, institutions risk engaging individuals who lack the training, certification, or integrity required for such sensitive roles.

The medical field is another critical area. While the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council maintains a register, a UDIN-style verification tool could help patients confirm the legitimacy of prescriptions, referrals, or medical reports-especially in rural or underserved areas where impersonation is more rampant.

ICPAK’s investment in UDIN includes a secure, user-friendly platform accessible via www.icpak.com. Users can simply enter the UDIN code to confirm the validity of any audit report.

The portal is prominently displayed for seamless access, ensuring that verification becomes a routine part of financial due diligence.

Following the launch, ICPAK will embark on a nationwide sensitisation campaign-engaging stakeholders across public and private sectors to ensure smooth adoption.

Forums, trainings, and regulator briefings will help embed UDIN into Kenya’s financial culture, making it a standard for accountability.

As the regulator of the accounting profession, ICPAK recognises that technology is no longer optional-it is essential. UDIN reflects our commitment to staying ahead of the curve, breaking barriers to trust, and empowering professionals to uphold the highest standards.

It is a digital shield against fraud, a gateway to credibility, and a testament to our resolve to protect the integrity of Kenya’s financial reporting ecosystem.

In adopting UDIN, ICPAK is not just launching a tool-it is making a statement. We are ready to lead, innovate, and transform. And we invite other professional bodies to follow suit.

A senior manager once told how a weekly meeting had become a dreaded ritual. The team arrived, gave quick updates, and then fell into silence. Questions from the manager were met with one-word answers: ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Not sure.’ When asked for ideas, the team looked back blankly, as though saying, ‘You tell us.’

The meetings were frustrating, draining, and convinced her that the team lacked initiative, competencies, or intent to sabotage. What was happening, however, was disengagement.

Another employee explained how weekly team meetings had become dreaded meetings, as the manager held monologues pinpointing shortfalls, dispensing solutions, new targets, and veiled threats, without seeking ideas from the team. He had become an advice monster. In some organisations, meetings that should inspire collaboration and creativity end up as routine sessions where employees only speak when compelled.

This creates an ‘illusion of productivity,’ where employees spend enormous time in meetings, but little meaningful discussion or decision-making takes place. The silence is often a symptom of deeper issues within the organisation’s culture and leadership.

Employees choose silence in meetings for several reasons. Some fear reprisal, believing that sharing honest opinions may be met with criticism or career-limiting consequences.

Others have learned, through experience, that their contributions are routinely dismissed or ignored. Junior staff may feel it is inappropriate to challenge or question their superiors in a meeting.

In some cases, employees remain quiet because they see no clear purpose in the meeting itself. When agendas are vague or discussions are dominated by the manager, participants retreat into passivity.

The impact on the manager is equally significant. Silence can be deeply unsettling for leaders who interpret it as laziness or incompetence.

Left unchecked, it develops into frustration and even resentment, creating a vicious cycle where the manager becomes more controlling, and the employees become even quieter. The result is toxic meetings that leave everyone demoralised and the organisation deprived of ideas.

Managers can use proven strategies to improve the quality of meetings, like creating psychological safety, which is a belief that one can speak up without the risk of punishment, humiliation, or harsh judgment.

When managers foster psychological safety, employees are more willing to share ideas, raise concerns, and take creative risks.

Some practical approaches to improving meetings, like setting a clear agenda and communicating expectations beforehand, help employees prepare and feel confident about contributing.

Instead of asking closed questions that elicit ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses, managers should use open-ended prompts such as ‘What challenges do you see in this proposal?’ or ‘How else might we approach this problem?’ These types of questions invite further discussion and demonstrate that diverse perspectives are valued.

Another useful strategy is rotating the responsibility of leading or presenting parts of the meeting. When employees have a role beyond passive attendance, they feel a greater sense of ownership, which improves participation and engagement, and a conviction that their input genuinely matters to the outcome of a discussion.

Importantly, managers must also demonstrate that ideas raised in meetings are acknowledged and acted upon. Nothing discourages employees more than seeing their suggestions vanish into a void.

Time management also plays a role. Prolonged, meandering meetings sap energy and discourage contributions. I once worked in a company where management meetings often commenced at 4pm and routinely ended past 9pm. I later learned the same issues were rolled over with no substantive closure. A former boss of mine told me that, if a meeting lasts more than three hours, it should be a workshop. Productive meetings are structured, purposeful, and respectful of participants’ time.

When meetings are concise and outcome-driven, employees are more likely to engage actively rather than watch the clock.

Admitting uncertainty, asking for feedback on their own decisions, and thanking employees for their contributions all help the manager dismantle hierarchical barriers.

When leaders set the tone by showing they are willing to listen and learn, employees respond with greater honesty and engagement.

The payoff for creating such an environment is great. Meetings shift from being dreaded obligations to forums where problems are discussed and solved, innovations are inspired, and employees feel part of something larger than themselves. Leaders no longer feel isolated in decision-making, and teams gain confidence in shaping the organisation’s direction.

As a manager, the next time you find yourself in a silent meeting, resist the urge to blame your employees. Instead, reflect on the culture and environment you have created.

Are people afraid of speaking up? Do they feel their views matter? Is the meeting structured to encourage dialogue? Have you become an advice monster? Do you provide leadership or dominate the meetings? What is your level of self-awareness and ability to control your emotions?

These are the questions every manager must ask, because when employees speak in meetings, they contribute ideas to help organisations thrive. And when managers learn to listen, meetings become not just a routine, but a powerful way of creating a culture where employees feel safe to give ideas.