Editor's Picks: Highlights in the Business Sector!
Local firms face new pressure to find, retain, and manage their talent effectively as chief executive officers (CEOs) angle for growth in the next 12 months. According to an October CEOs survey by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the executives have listed talent management and developing reward strategies as the joint second driver for expansion within the period.
The focus on talent will likely see firms fighting to attract top talent while striving to retain the best in their employees. CEOs have nevertheless listed expansion into new markets as the top driver into the next year.
Despite total procurement spending on local and foreign businesses exceeding Sh100 billion, Safaricom reduced its number of suppliers by more than half in the six years leading up to March this year. The telco has disclosed in the latest sustainability report that it closed March with 720 suppliers, marking the sixth straight month of a reduced number of businesses trading with Kenya’s most profitable company.
The 720—made up of 550 local and 170 foreign—was a drop from last year’s 799 and a 62.8% decline from the high of 1,172 in the financial year ended March 2017. Safaricom links the dropping number of suppliers to consolidation, even as it continues to ramp up spending, which grew to Sh102 billion from Sh94.6 billion.
According to a recent report, Nairobi City County is playing a more significant role in Kenya's economy than 29 other counties combined. This underscores the concentration of wealth and the capital city's pivotal role in East Africa's largest economy. Government data analysis further reveals that economic productivity per capita in Nairobi is nearly three times higher than in the rest of Kenya.
Nairobi, with its stronghold on Kenya's manufacturing, construction, and services sectors, has contributed 27.5% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the last five years, with its productivity increasing by approximately Sh700 billion in just the past two years.
The State has revealed a fresh plan to scrap all taxes on cooking gas and cylinders amid multi-billion shilling investments in the sector in the latest effort to fast-track Kenya’s transition to clean energy. President William Ruto’s Cabinet on Monday proposed the tax cuts meant to make the fuel affordable to more households.
领英推荐
The following have been proposed; removal of the taxes on locally manufactured cylinders, on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) product as well as on the cost of the cylinder revalidation,' said a Cabinet dispatch last evening.
Snehar Shah, with a background in electrical engineering, boasts a track record of establishing, expanding, and ultimately selling startups for substantial sums. Recently, he transitioned from his role as CEO at Moringa School to a similar position at IX Africa, Kenya's newest data center. In this Business Daily interview, he discusses his vision for the company, which aims to attract global tech giants, and his strategies for setting IX Africa apart from other data centers. Read more.
All visitors to Kenya, regardless of the length of their stay, will be required to purchase local health insurance, potentially generating significant revenue for the insurance industry from the 1.5 million annual foreign arrivals.
If adopted, this requirement will place Kenya among countries in the Schengen zone, where all visitors are obligated to obtain national health insurance coverage. The Schengen countries, such as France, Germany, Austria, and more, deny entry to visitors without travel health insurance.
Telkom Kenya, the third-largest telco in the country, experienced a significant decline in subscribers, losing 1.62 million between March of the previous year and June of this year. Telkom Kenya was the only telco to lose subscribers during this crackdown, impacting its competitive position relative to Safaricom and Airtel, the two leading telecom companies in the market.
Collapsed stockbroker Shah Munge & Partners Ltd has failed to overturn a decision that found it culpable for the loss of more than Sh251 million belonging to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) in the 2002 Euro Bank scandal.