BY ABDI LATIF DAHIR Kenya held one of Africa’s most expensive elections in 2017, with its electoral body alone using more than Sh5.3 billion to conduct the polls. Allegations of tampering and hacking, voter boycotts, and violence dogged the voting, and the Supreme Court eventually annulled the August presidential results and ordered a new election in October. After the electoral irregularities of 2007 and 2013, the crisis solidified mistrust of the electoral commission. Now the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is planning to look into blockchain technologies that could allow candidates to “securely access” real-time results, hence improving transparency and easing public suspicion. The plan has kicked off an impassioned conversation…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
BY DAVID ONJILI The key factor of demand and supply in any business establishment can never be overstated. For a business to thrive, it must meet specific demands in that region. It does pay in the long run to analyze the location where you intend to set up the business. The demographics of your clients, their purchasing power and the government regulations of running such a venture within a certain location are key. A majority of Nairobians seldom have breakfast in their houses; this is because most of them need to be at their respective workstations by eight or half…
BY MOHAMED AHMED Skyscrapers are very tall buildings that define a city’s skyline. The term originates in the US in the late 1880s during the building boom in Chicago and New York. At this time, buildings that had more floors than the surrounding buildings were called skyscrapers. Lately, buildings that have at least 40 or more floors are designated as skyscrapers. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, an international organization of civil engineers and architects based in Chicago, ranks the heights of buildings based on three criteria: the height of building from the lowest level to the architectural top,…
BY DAVID ONJILI Regulatory sandboxes, is when the government or essentially the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) stays aloof to allow experimentation then later formulate policy to guide them. The gist of this is to give a safe legal status and space for ingenuity to investors and developers to unlock their unique financial innovations with specific bias to Kenyan consumers. It is greatly inspired by the global success of M-Pesa where Kenya remains a trailblazer in mobile money innovation. Fintech innovation tends to align with the Capital Market’s 10-year Master Plan that seeks to stimulate innovation, broaden products while deepening market…
BY GILBERT NG’ANG’A This was meant to be a year when Kenyans would begin enjoying the raft of economic promises made by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime last year as the Jubilee government sought re-election. As imagined by many, going with the Jubilee manifesto and campaign statements, the country would usher in an era of economic prosperity, anchored on lower cost of living and increased business and job opportunities. However, nearly a year since re-election, that is not to be the case. Kenya is staring at an era of high cost of living in the coming months, which could trigger mass…
BY EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA Prof Kivutha Kibwana projects a certain humility that is depressingly rare. He resisted when an aide attempted to give him a “better” seat during our interview. The law professor was comfortable on a seat his staffer considered not befitting his status—an ordinary seat. A conversation with the Makueni governor paints a picture of a scholar who left the ivory towers and retreated to the village to work with ordinary people. And he seems pretty at home. He fought for a Wanjiku-driven Constitution. After passing the Constitution, he followed Wanjiku to the village. The governor sees his current…
“Like all major transitions in human history, the shift from a linear to a circular economy will be a tumultuous one. It will feature heroes and pioneers, naysayers and obstacles, and moments of victory and doubt. If we persevere, however, we will put our economy back on a path of growth and sustainability. Many years from now, people will look back on it as a revolution.” – Frans van Houten BY ANTONY MUTUNGA Imagine a world where pollution was reduced to a minimum, a place where the air, land and water were free of waste from industries. Wouldn’t that be…
BY DAVID ONJILI The true taste of the pudding is in the eating. George, a mobile phone repairer along Tom Mboya Street in Nairobi and a personal friend escorts me to a stall along the busy street to meet Wanjiru, a reserved business woman and a mother to a teenage girl who is also pursuing her degree at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). She may pass for as an ordinary jobless Nairobi dweller, yet she is a moneylender, a member of Nairobi’s secret club of millionaires. I have with me a Huawei GR3 model mobile phone, which…
By Victor Adar A brand store is one of those things that will really add value to a business. In this era of cutthroat competition, Norbert Klein admits that the big idea in opening a showroom is to capture future customers today. The head of region for Turkey, Middle East, Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (now called Russia) at Bosch knows too well how such a strategy can boost sales and strengthen customer loyalty. “When it comes to building up of our brand, one of our strategies is a brand store,” he points out. “In a normal retail shop,…
BY ANTONY MUTUNGA For years the local telecommunication sector has seen a fierce competition with Safaricom PLC leading the park in what has pushed competitors, Airtel and Telkom Kenya to argue that the leaders hold an unfair advantage over them. Time and time again the competition has argued to the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) about the dominance of Safaricom that allows it to control market trends. However, each time the case has not yielded any result as the dominant Telco maintains a major market share. This constant discussion on dominance saw the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) commission an…