Author: Francis Muli

Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia has become the first to complain after failing to be nominated as Kenya’s next Chief Justice. Ngatia, who had been tipped by a section of Kenyans as the frontrunner missed the nomination, which was clinched by Court of Appeal Judge Martha Koome. Speaking to a local daily, Ngatia said that four Mount Kenya commissioners of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) reduced his scores after receiving calls from powerful individuals in the government. “Four commissioners from Mt Kenya reduced my scores yesterday (Monday) afternoon after they were called by powerful people. Without that intervention, I was far…

Wajir Members of County Assembly (MCAs) have passed a motion to impeach Governor Mohamed Abdi Mohamud 37 MCAs voted in favour of the motion, while 10 voted otherwise. He is accused of financial impropriety, abuse of office, gross misconduct and violation of the Constitution. His fate now lies in the hands of the Senate, who will grill him before taking a vote to seal his fate. Earlier in the day, Governor Abdi’s lawyers were barred from serving MCAs with a court order suspending the planned impeachment. The order was issued by Meru High Court Judge Justice Edward Muriithi, suspending the…

Makongeni MCA who doubles as the Minority Whip in the Nairobi County Assembly Peter Imwatok has written to the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) flagging payments worth over Ksh685 million by the county government. In a letter dated April 26, Imwatok says that the companies receiving the payments are big and well-connected, with some being proxies to MCAs or staffers of the County government. At the centre of the payments is acting governor Ann Kananu, who has been running the Nairobi county government since Mike Sonko was impeached. Most of the payments were made after she took over on January…

The Ministry of Lands has today launched the  National Land Information Management System. The event which was presided by President Uhuru Kenyatta marks the launch of a system that will help address fraud and corruption cases that have dogged the ministry for years. The digital system will address challenges in the current manual land registration and transfer process that is consistent with duplication of land titles, missing documents, doctored land registry records and extended timelines on service delivery Upon going live, the Nairobi Registry at the Ministry of Lands offices located at Ardhi House will no longer will no longer…

The Waterfront Karen Shopping Mall is not on sale as earlier reported in sections of the media, the managing director Dr David Muguku has said. In a statement, Dr Muguku said that the mall remains “a long-term investment” for the proprietors. “We would like to dispel this information and let the public, our tenants and clients know that the information is false and does not represent the position of the management. The Information should therefore be disregarded and treated as false,” said Dr Muguku “The Waterfront Karen Shopping Mall and its surrounding property remains to be a long-term investment… We…

The National Land Commission (NLC) is facing major backlash after paying Ksh1.5 billion to businesswoman Ms Rosaline Njeri Macharia who allegedly owns the piece of land where City Cabanas restaurant sits, despite a court order stopping the same. The money was paid on behalf of the Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha) for the acquisition of the land, which will be used in the construction of the Nairobi Expressway. According to documents in our possession, another company, Simandi Investments Ltd, has been claiming ownership of the land. Simandi is owned by Mr Simon Ondiba, who says that they bought the land…

Tender management system, Scale, has launched in Kenya with the aim of providing a fully digitized platform where businesses can discover Tender opportunities. The system provides essential tools to SMEs to help them digitally prepare and submit winning tender responses. Scale aims to help at least 1.6 million Kenyan SMEs that are undeserved and disadvantaged by the existing procurement tools in the market. The platform has already signed up 3,300 businesses that are managing their tendering processes through them. The tender management company says it uses digital checklists to design accurate and consistent responses. The document management system helps in…

Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) is set to compensate hundreds of fishermen affected by the Lamu Port construction, with the compensation amount estimated at Ksh1.76 billion. At least 4,734 fishermen are listed as beneficiaries in the exercise, which is set to kick off soon following a meeting between KPA and a multi-agency team in the Lamu County Commissioner’s office. “We rolling out the entire programme and working closely with all the concerned parties to ensure that we leave no one out,” KPA Head of Corporate Affairs, Mr Benard Osero told The Standard. The multiagency team has been cleaning the list, which…

Nigerian singer David Adedeji Adeleke, popularly known as Davido has become the most followed African personality on Instagram with 20 million followers. Davido broke the news to his fans last week and celebrated the event by dropping a new hit “CHO CHO” featuring Zlatan and MayorKun. Tanzanian Artiste Naseeb Abdul Juma popularly known as Diamond follows closely with 12.2 million followers while Nigeria’s Wizkid comes close with 12.1 million followers. Despite his global popularity, Grammy-award winning Nigerian artiste Burnaboy has 6.7 million followers. Locally, Eric Omondi leads the pack with 3.4 million followers followed by singer Tanasha with 3 million.…

The High Court has dismissed a suit filed by Keroche Breweries against East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) over beer bottles tussle. In a ruling, Justice Alfred Mabeya referred the case to the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) to complete investigations within 120 days. “Accordingly, I uphold the preliminary objection and strike out the application and plaint. I direct that the third defendant (CAK) to continue with the process it had commenced in respect of the complaint touching on the complaint herein and deal with it as per the law provided,” ruled Justice Mabeya. The judge ruled that the findings gathered…

When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last year, the government announced several measures including the adoption of paperless transactions to curb the spread of the virus. A year on and things are almost back to pre-pandemic period. The idea of paperless transactions worked best for buyers, but most sellers and service providers are quite happy to revert to cash transactions. At Ngara Market in Fig tree, the fruit and vegetable vendors insist on cash payments, and in cases where the customer does not have cash, they are redirected to a shop where they can withdraw money. Since the transaction fee…

Kenyan giant telecommunications company Safaricom has revealed a consortium of five companies that it will use to bid for a telecommunications licence in Ethiopia. The consortium led by Safaricom includes Vodacom Group Ltd (South Africa), Vodafone Group PLC (UK), CDC Group PLC (UK) and Sumitomo Corporation (Japan). This follows a request for proposals (RFP) issued on March 5 by the Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) for the award of two full-service mobile telecommunications licenses in Ethiopia. “The Consortium will be submitting its proposal to the ECA in accordance with the RFP. For structuring purposes, the respective consortium members may invest through…

Ethiopian Airlines Group has joined hands with BGI Health Ethiopia, a subsidiary of China’s biotech giant, the BGI Genomics Co., Ltd, to launch high-end COVID-19 testing laboratory at its main hub at the  Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. The testing center is opened to revitalize the passengers’ business by creating seamless travel experience that includes COVID-19 testing to passengers that are departing or transiting via Addis Ababa. The state-of-the-art COVID-19 testing lab is equipped with cutting-edge technologies to provide quick and accurate testing for passengers. Currently, the lab has a capacity to carry out 1,000 COVID-19 tests a day with…

Many Kenyans on Sunday, April 25 stayed without power after Kenya Power’s prepaid vending system experienced a hitch. Kenyans who tried to buy ‘tokens’ through Kenya Powers paybill number 888880 were told that the “organisation receiving the payment is unavailable”. In a statement, Kenya power said that the hitch had also affected their contact centre 97771. “We are experiencing a technical hitch that is affecting prepaid vending and preventing access to our Contact Centre via 97771. Our technical team is working to restore normalcy as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience caused,” the statement read in part. By…

Kakuzi Limited has taken to court the Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and Ndura Resource Center (NRC) over human rights abuse reports. The two lobby groups led investigations against Kakuzi guards in Kenya who are said to have perpetrated rape, killings, and abuses in the Makuyu farm. The investigation reports by the two farms were used to sue Camellia PLC, Kakuzi’s parent company, in the UK which yielded Ksh696 million as compensation. In the case filed in the High Court, Kakuzi says that the two lobby groups have no evidence on their reports, and want KHRC forced to delete…