The price of ugali, Kenya’s most consumed staple, is set to rise further after the government declined to review packaging regulations that require maize and wheat flour to be wrapped in taxed paper materials, a decision that millers and traders say will be passed directly to consumers.

Ugali is not merely a food item in Kenya — it is a dietary cornerstone for millions of households, particularly in low-income urban areas and rural communities where it constitutes the primary source of daily calories. Any increase in its cost carries significant social and political weight, as previous flour price spikes have triggered public protests and prompted emergency government interventions.

The Kenya Association of Manufacturers has repeatedly lobbied for a review of packaging levies, arguing that the mandatory use of specific paper grades adds unnecessary cost to the production chain. Millers say imported paper packaging materials attract duties that inflate operational costs, a burden that has grown alongside a weaker shilling. The Kenyan currency lost roughly 20 percent of its value against the dollar in 2023 before recovering partially in 2024, making dollar-denominated imports considerably more expensive.

Wheat flour is equally exposed. Kenya imports the majority of its wheat, sourcing heavily from Eastern Europe and, historically, from Ukraine and Russia — two countries whose ongoing conflict disrupted global grain markets and contributed to elevated commodity prices that have yet to fully normalise.

The National Cereals and Produce Board has limited strategic reserve capacity, meaning price buffers available to government are constrained. Consumer advocacy groups are urging the Treasury to reconsider the packaging tax regime ahead of the next budget cycle, warning that continued inaction will deepen food insecurity among the estimated 3.5 million Kenyans already facing acute hunger, according to recent government assessments.

Kenya’s power sector is undergoing a structural transformation, driven by a combination of surging electricity demand, climate commitments and a growing push toward more efficient energy consumption across households and industry.

The country’s installed generation capacity now stands at roughly 3,200 megawatts, with geothermal and hydropower accounting for the bulk of the mix. Yet persistent load management challenges, particularly during dry spells that hamper hydro output, have accelerated interest in solar, wind and battery storage solutions. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project in northern Kenya, one of Africa’s largest wind farms at 310 megawatts, exemplifies the scale of investment the sector has attracted over the past decade.

On the demand side, rapid urbanisation and an expanding middle class are pushing residential and commercial electricity consumption upward. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics estimates that electricity connections have grown substantially, with rural electrification initiatives under the Last Mile Connectivity Programme bringing power to previously underserved communities. This expansion, while welcome, is adding pressure to a grid that still suffers significant transmission and distribution losses.

Smart metering is gaining traction as Kenya Power works to reduce non-technical losses and improve revenue collection. Prepaid meters have already replaced many post-pay connections, and advanced metering infrastructure is being piloted in Nairobi and Mombasa as part of a broader grid modernisation effort.

In the construction sector, energy-efficient building codes are increasingly shaping design decisions. Developers targeting the middle and upper segments of the market are incorporating solar water heaters, LED lighting and better insulation as both cost-saving measures and selling points for environmentally conscious buyers.

Kenya’s climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, which include a target to source 100 percent of electricity from renewables, are adding political momentum to what is already a commercially driven energy transition.

A renovation project at State House Nairobi has reignited a charged public conversation about government expenditure, architectural heritage and the standards to which public officials should be held when spending taxpayer money on official residences.

Images of the newly resurfaced roof circulated widely on social media, drawing sharp commentary from architects, urban planners and ordinary Kenyans who questioned both the aesthetic choices and the reported cost of the works. Critics argued that the project lacked transparency, with no public procurement notice or cost breakdown made available through official channels, a pattern that has drawn repeated censure from the Auditor General in past annual reports.

State House has historical and symbolic significance in Kenya. Built during the British colonial period and expanded after independence, the complex on Nairobi’s Harambee Avenue has served as the official residence and workplace of every Kenyan president since Jomo Kenyatta. Its architecture blends colonial-era construction with subsequent additions, and any modification to the structure carries implications beyond the purely practical.

Roofing professionals who weighed in on the debate noted that modern options available in Kenya — including aluminium standing-seam systems, stone-coated steel tiles and green roof technology — offer improved durability, thermal performance and aesthetic flexibility compared with older materials. Some pointed out that public institutions in Nairobi, including hospitals and schools, are deteriorating for lack of basic maintenance funding, making the State House expenditure a visible symbol of misaligned priorities.

The controversy reflects a broader tension in Kenyan public life between legitimate infrastructure upkeep of official buildings and the government’s obligation to demonstrate fiscal restraint at a time when citizens are absorbing the impact of increased taxes introduced under the 2023 Finance Act. The National Treasury has not issued an official comment on the cost of the works.

Kenya has quietly positioned itself as one of Africa’s most competitive destinations for remote workers and globally hired digital professionals, a shift that is reshaping how local talent engages with international labour markets and creating new demand for cross-border compliance and payroll services.

Several structural factors underpin this trend. Nairobi’s relatively robust fibre internet infrastructure, a young and English-speaking workforce, and the proliferation of co-working spaces — particularly in the Westlands, Upper Hill and Karen corridors — have made the city an attractive base for professionals working for companies headquartered in Europe, North America and the Gulf. Kenya’s time zone, which overlaps with both European and East Asian business hours, is an additional operational advantage.

The government has taken steps to formalise this segment of the workforce. The Kenya Revenue Authority updated its guidelines on taxation of foreign-sourced income following confusion over how remote workers should declare earnings paid in foreign currency. Meanwhile, the recently enacted Business Laws Amendment Act introduced provisions intended to clarify the legal status of remote employment contracts and reduce administrative friction for local workers serving overseas clients.

Global platforms have contributed to the growth. Kenyan freelancers consistently rank among Africa’s top earners on platforms such as Upwork and Toptal, with concentrations in software development, data science, content creation and financial modelling. Estimates from the Kenya ICT Authority suggest that the digital economy now contributes close to 9 percent of GDP, though the remote work component is not separately tracked.

Compliance service providers — firms helping foreign companies legally engage Kenyan contractors or employees without establishing a local entity — are reporting significant year-on-year growth. The trend mirrors developments in South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, but Kenya’s regulatory environment and infrastructure are drawing comparisons to more established remote work hubs in Eastern Europe.

Co-operative Bank of Kenya has entered a formal partnership with Paymenta, a fintech platform operating under the DSSC Global Group, in a deal that both parties say will accelerate the adoption of Banking as a Service infrastructure across East Africa’s rapidly evolving digital payments landscape.

The agreement positions Co-operative Bank — one of Kenya’s largest lenders by asset base, with strong roots in the country’s cooperative movement and a customer network that spans rural saccos and urban professionals — as a regulated banking backbone for Paymenta’s suite of digital financial products. Under the arrangement, Paymenta will leverage the bank’s licensing, settlement infrastructure and compliance framework to deliver embedded financial services to businesses and consumers through its platform.

Banking as a Service, known in the industry as BaaS, has gained traction globally as a model that allows non-bank companies to offer financial products by integrating directly with a licensed institution’s core systems via application programming interfaces. In Kenya, where mobile money penetration is among the highest in the world following M-Pesa’s transformative launch in 2007, the model finds fertile ground in a market already comfortable with non-traditional financial service delivery.

The Central Bank of Kenya has been incrementally updating its regulatory framework to accommodate emerging fintech models, including the National Payments System Act and guidelines covering payment service providers. Both entities will be expected to operate within these parameters, and analysts say clear regulatory compliance will be a critical factor in determining how broadly the partnership can scale.

DSSC Global Group describes itself as a technology conglomerate with operations spanning financial services, logistics and data infrastructure. East Africa’s payments sector has attracted growing international interest, with transaction volumes on regional networks rising sharply as cross-border trade digitalises and intra-African commerce expands under the African Continental Free Trade Area framework.

**Flower industry incurs Sh180 million losses per week**

Kenya’s floriculture sector, one of the country’s most significant foreign exchange earners, is bleeding more than Sh180 million every week as the prolonged conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt global air cargo networks and compress demand in key markets.

The losses stem from a combination of sharply higher freight charges and a reduction in available belly-cargo capacity on commercial flights serving routes that connect Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Europe and the Gulf. Airlines have rerouted or cancelled services over conflict-affected airspace, increasing journey times and costs while reducing the number of viable cargo slots available to Kenyan exporters.

Kenya is the world’s third-largest exporter of cut flowers, supplying roughly 38 percent of flowers sold in the European Union. The sector employs an estimated 150,000 people directly, with hundreds of thousands more in ancillary industries such as packaging, cold-chain logistics and farm inputs. The Naivasha and Mount Kenya regions, which host the majority of the country’s flower farms, are already showing signs of strain, with some smaller operations reducing working hours and deferring planting cycles.

Industry body the Kenya Flower Council has urged the government to negotiate preferential cargo rates with local carriers and to accelerate talks with alternative transit hubs in order to reduce dependency on Gulf routing. Growers are also exploring sea-freight options for hardier flower varieties, though perishability remains a fundamental constraint for premium roses and carnations.

The crisis arrives at a difficult moment for an industry still recovering from the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered European markets for months and forced mass layoffs across the sector. Sustained freight disruptions, growers warn, risk permanently shifting European buyer relationships toward competing exporters in Ethiopia and Colombia.

**How everyday WiFi Routers can now secretly track and identify people**

A growing body of research is revealing an unsettling capability hidden within the WiFi routers found in homes, offices and public spaces across Kenya: the ability to monitor and identify individuals without their knowledge, using nothing more than the radio waves these devices already emit.

Scientists have demonstrated that by analysing the patterns in which WiFi signals bounce off and are absorbed by the human body, it is possible to distinguish individuals based on their physical characteristics and movement signatures. The technique, known as radio frequency sensing, does not require any special hardware — existing consumer-grade routers can be adapted for this purpose using software modifications.

For Kenya, where WiFi infrastructure has expanded rapidly in urban centres such as Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, the implications are significant. Shopping malls, hospitals, universities and government offices routinely deploy WiFi networks that customers and visitors connect to without considering what additional data those networks might collect.

The vulnerability is particularly relevant given Kenya’s ongoing efforts to regulate data privacy under the Data Protection Act of 2019, which mandates explicit consent for personal data collection. Legal experts argue that passive tracking via radio waves almost certainly falls within the Act’s scope, yet enforcement mechanisms have not been tested against this type of surveillance.

Security researchers stress that the technique is already within reach of moderately sophisticated actors, including private companies, criminal networks and state agencies. The attack leaves no trace on the target’s device and requires no interaction from the person being monitored.

The Communications Authority of Kenya has not yet issued specific guidance on radio frequency-based surveillance, though consumer advocates are calling for updated router certification standards that would require manufacturers to disclose and restrict such capabilities before their products reach the Kenyan market.

**KMRC’s Sh3b green bond clears the way for single-digit mortgages**

The Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company has taken a landmark step toward broadening access to affordable home ownership after its Sh3 billion sustainability bond attracted overwhelming investor interest and secured a listing on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

The bond, which was oversubscribed, signals growing appetite among Kenyan institutional investors for fixed-income instruments tied to environmental and social outcomes. Proceeds will be channelled into refinancing mortgages extended by participating primary lenders under terms that align with green building standards, prioritising energy-efficient housing and developments in underserved areas.

KMRC, a government-backed entity established in 2018 with support from the World Bank and the African Development Bank, was created specifically to address one of Kenya’s most persistent economic inequalities: the near-impossibility of home ownership for middle- and lower-income earners. Mortgage penetration in Kenya stands at less than three percent of GDP, far below the African average and a fraction of the rates seen in developed economies.

High commercial interest rates, which have historically pushed mortgage costs above 14 percent annually, are the central obstacle. By providing long-term, lower-cost refinancing to banks and savings cooperatives, KMRC aims to create the conditions under which lenders can sustainably offer single-digit mortgage rates — a threshold experts consider the minimum necessary to meaningfully shift demand.

The NSE listing also enhances transparency and opens the instrument to a wider pool of investors, including pension funds seeking long-duration assets that match their liabilities.

Housing advocates cautioned that financing alone will not resolve the shortage, estimating Kenya’s annual housing deficit at roughly 200,000 units. They called on county governments to accelerate land titling and reform zoning regulations that continue to inflate construction costs in peri-urban areas where affordable housing is most urgently needed.

Kenya’s manufacturing sector has sounded the alarm over proposed tax measures in the Finance Bill 2026, with industry leaders warning that planned levies on goods imported from East African Community partner states could trigger widespread job losses and force some factories to shut down permanently.

The Kenya Association of Manufacturers says the proposed charges contradict the EAC Common Market Protocol, which guarantees free movement of goods across member states including Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Imposing fresh duties on intra-regional imports, manufacturers argue, would effectively unwind decades of trade integration.

Kenya’s manufacturing sector contributes roughly eight percent of GDP and employs an estimated 300,000 people directly, with millions more in upstream and downstream supply chains. Industries particularly exposed include food processing, textiles, and fast-moving consumer goods — all of which source inputs or sell finished products across EAC borders.

Business leaders warn that if the bill passes in its current form, companies facing higher input costs will be left with three options: absorb losses, raise consumer prices, or downsize. Several mid-sized processors that operate on thin margins say they would have little choice but to reduce headcount or relocate operations to more cost-competitive EAC jurisdictions.

The government has defended the bill as part of a broader revenue-raising strategy aimed at reducing Kenya’s fiscal deficit, which stood at above five percent of GDP in the last financial year. Treasury officials have indicated some provisions remain open to amendment following public participation.

Manufacturers are pressing Members of Parliament to reject or substantially revise the bill before it reaches its third reading, scheduled for later in the parliamentary session.

**Carrefour says it has invested Sh15 billion in Kenyan economy**

French retail group Carrefour has outlined the scale of its footprint in Kenya, disclosing that since establishing operations in the country in 2016 it has directed approximately Sh15 billion into local economic activity and accumulated more than Sh239 billion in cumulative procurement from Kenyan suppliers.

The figures, released by the company’s regional operator Majid Al Futtaim, are intended to underscore Carrefour’s position as a contributor to the domestic economy at a time when large foreign retailers face scrutiny over the extent to which their presence benefits local producers, manufacturers and workers.

Carrefour entered Kenya through a franchise arrangement and has since expanded to multiple outlets in Nairobi, including locations at Two Rivers, Hub Karen, The Village Market and Galleria, as well as a presence in Mombasa. The chain competes in a retail landscape that has been reshaped by the collapse of local giants Nakumatt and Tuskys, both of which imploded under the weight of debt and mismanagement, leaving a significant gap that foreign and regional players moved quickly to fill.

The company says its local sourcing covers fresh produce, dairy, processed foods and select manufactured goods, with hundreds of Kenyan businesses holding supply contracts. Critics, however, have questioned whether procurement terms — including payment timelines and packaging requirements — are accessible to small and medium-sized Kenyan suppliers or primarily favour larger, more established food processors.

Kenya’s retail sector has attracted renewed interest from investors as urban consumer spending recovers, though persistent inflationary pressure and a weak shilling have complicated the purchasing power of the middle-income households that anchor modern trade. Carrefour’s investment declaration comes as the government actively courts foreign direct investment to support its economic agenda under the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation plan.