Author: Mbugua Ng'ang'a

From banking to health, education to media, there are very Kenyans whose lives have not been impacted by His Highness the Aga Khan, who died last week and was buried in Egypt on Sunday. I, for instance, remember how my grandfather, Samuel Munyiri, used to make cigarette rolls from old Taifa Leo newspapers, and how I would read the ‘Kibogoyo Akujibu’ columns as I watched him make the cigarettes that he would then keep in the space between his earlobe and his head for later consumption. It is possible that I became a journalist from that early interaction with the…

One of the fascinating things about the robotics department at the Mathioya Technical and Vocational Training College is the ability of the youthful students to come up with technological innovations and prototypes that have the potential to be scaled successfully. The only missing link holding them back is the lack of money to turn their prototypes into products. Their innovations, however, are testament of the creativity in young people, including those who score low grades in national examinations such as the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). According to the latest data from the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC), a…

It is hilarious to see banks scrambling to cut interest rates on loans after the Central Bank of Kenya summoned industry CEOs to answer questions on why they were yet to comply with the regulator’s directive on the pricing of loans. In the last two weeks, banks have been reporting super profits for the third quarter of the year, with one coming to within smelling distance of catching up with Safaricom, which has been an outlier for decades. Whereas there is nothing wrong with an organisation — or industry — driving its profitability aggressively, these numbers should be derived from…

Just when football lovers in Kenya were beginning to celebrate the possibility of a new leadership, a disgruntled contestant has moved to court and obtained an injunction stopping the long-awaited Football Kenya Federetion (FKF) election. Whereas aggrieved persons have a right to seek recourse in courts, we must not lose sight of the fact that Kenya recently emerged from a Fifa suspension because local football honchos had refused to vacate office. Instead, they used underhand maneuvres that compelled government to intervene. This is the one thing that Fifa abhors, and it led to Kenya’s suspension for two years. The affected…

Equity Bank Group spent Sh32 billion on staff costs in 2023, according to the lender’s third sustainability report that was unveiled at Karura Forest in Nairobi on Tuesday, September 3. This represented a close to Sh7 billion jump from the Sh24.8 billion that the firm spent in the preceding year. On average, the report states, each employee had a carbon intensity of 1.7 tonnes, an increase from 1.6 tonnes in 2022. In mitigation, the workers planted a total of 25.2 million trees over the period under review, again, an increase from 21.8 million trees in the previous year. Says the…

Banks will no longer enjoy discretion to raise interest on loans, the Supreme Court has ruled, effectively taming the appetite of lenders who raise the cost of credit every time the Central Bank of Kenya reviews is Base Lending Rate. In a ruling that will come as a relief for borrowers, who have had to endure arbitrary increases in loan rates, the Supreme Court said no bank can raise rates without the approval of the National Treasury. The Nairobi Business Monthly had in its March edition questioned why banks increase loan rates on old loans every time CBK reviews its…

The Central Bank Rate (CBR), which banks use as a benchmark in the pricing of commercial loans, rose to a high of 12.50 per cent in December 2023, a sharp increase from the 8.75 per cent in December 2022.

Kenya’s national wealth, also known as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a rate of 5.6 per cent even as world real GDP slowed down to 3.1 per cent, compared to 3.5 per cent in 2022, according to highlights from the 2024 Economic Survey Report, which was launched on Monday, May 20, in Nairobi. The growth was mostly attributed to the expansion of the agriculture sector, forestry and fishing, which grew by over 19 per cent. There was also an increase in formal sector jobs, which grew by 2.7 per cent to reach 363,200. According to the report, unveiled by…

The establishment of the small claims courts across the country has brought justice closer to the people and resulted in a significant increase in the number of resolved cases, President William Ruto said as he announced plans to increase collaborations between the Executive and the Judiciary in the fight against corruption. The small claims courts were established by the Small Claims Act, 2016, which was assented to on April 1, 2016. This law was later amended by the Small Claims Court (Amendment) Act, 2020 before being gazetted through notice No. 3791 of 2021, the year that they started operations. The…