CJ's Court

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The statements attributed to the Governor of Nairobi, alleging that the challenges bedeviling the city, specifically wit...
13/03/2026

The statements attributed to the Governor of Nairobi, alleging that the challenges bedeviling the city, specifically with regard to last Friday’s flash floods that took anything between 23 to 42 lives (depending on the source, but could even be more) are in the least most ludicrous. To say that there was flooding in 1997 is lugubrious, to say the least. When Johnson Sakaja campaigned to become the Governor of Nairobi, he must have know very well the issues that needed to be fixed. Or what exactly was his manifesto? You apply for a job to fix problems and create opportunities, sustainable structures for the prosperity of the people, not to mention their safety and security. To say these problems are deep is to throw in the towel and the only thing that should follow is a resignation, because one cannot and should not stay on a job that they are not qualified for. No matter how deep our issues are, anyone coming into the office of the Governor of Nairobi must start from somewhere and must be seen to have started from somewhere. Whereas philanthropy is commendable, that is not the core operation of a government. The Governor cannot only be talking about the meals he provides to schools because we had the days of Nyayo milk and that did not immediately and directly translate into economic development, yet this program covered the entire nation for a very long while. If Nairobi is fixed to attract investment, development and growth, and those parents who cannot feed their children find opportunities to work, there will be no need to feed their children. It is the same Governor who raised the acceptable heights of buildings recently, for most of the places around the CBD, thereby participating in the creation of congestion-related problems facing this city. If we cannot solve the past challenges, however systemic they are, when will we have futuristic solutions? Where is the plan for the future? Israel learnt how to irrigate without adequate rainfall, and they’ve never begged for food like we often do. Egypt learnt to harness the Nile for its survival. Netherlands was reclaimed from the water. There are people who have had worse scenarios, including the Singapore we keep hearing about, which was a swampy place with a rural population yet because they had visionary leadership, they transformed themselves in one generation. We can’t have excuses, and not from someone whose campaign slogan was “It has to work”. Mr Sakaja needs to fold his sleeves and make it work, or go on terminal leave and let someone else make it work.



Kenya’s employment conversation deserves a more honest interrogation.We are a young country. Youth aged 15-34 form over ...
25/02/2026

Kenya’s employment conversation deserves a more honest interrogation.

We are a young country. Youth aged 15-34 form over a third of our population, and more than one million young people enter the labour market each year. That is not merely a statistic, it is a structural reality that demands deliberate economic design.

Recently, while addressing stakeholders at Kenyatta University, the PS for Trade and Investments, Dr. Juma Mukhwana stated that Kenya is recording at least three new manufacturing investors setting up factories every week, a sign, he noted, of resilience and growing investor confidence. President William Ruto, on the other hand, recently alluded to facilitating employment opportunities abroad for at least 500 young people each week, a move he claimed aimed at expanding access to global opportunities.

While government seems to have a bright picture of the current realities, the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), in a recent publication, highlighted the magnitude of the domestic youth employment challenge and the need for sustainable job creation within Kenya’s economy.

Therefore, all of these must be examined together. 500 young people leaving per week is 2000 jobs per month, in the diaspora. Manufacturing by itself contributes about 10% GDP and remains the second largest employer after government. Kenya has a formal workforce of 3.5 million, with 1.5 million of them earning below Kshs 30, 000, according to official sources. Maybe these numbers are a bit jumbled up for a layman like myself.

If three factories are opening weekly, what is their net employment impact? What is the average absorption capacity per factory? Are they labour-intensive ventures meaningfully expanding opportunity or capital-intensive investments with limited workforce uptake?

And if we are simultaneously expanding access to jobs abroad, what does that suggest about our domestic absorption capacity?

Conversely, we are also seeing reports of multinational exits, company dissolutions, and significant manufacturing job losses within a year. When weighed against these trends, what is the net effect?

If inflation has eased, why does purchasing power remain constrained for many households? Why are SMEs reporting liquidity pressures and shrinking margins? Where is the translation into stronger disposable income growth?

This is not a critique. It is a systems question.

Job creation is not simply about volume. It is about wage quality, productivity, and whether incomes are strong enough to stimulate domestic demand and sustain enterprise growth.

This brings me to a fundamental policy reflection:

Should job creation sit at the center of our national economic priorities even before housing and large-scale infrastructure expansion?

Without stable incomes, who will sustainably afford the houses?
Without productive enterprises, where will long-term tax revenue come from?
Without expanding purchasing power, how do we accelerate domestic consumption?

Economic transformation is not measured by announcements. It is measured by absorption capacity, wage quality, and household cash flow.

Perhaps the conversation needs to shift from “How many projects have we launched?” to “How many sustainable incomes have we created and at what level of dignity?”

Kenya’s demographic dividend can either become our greatest asset or our greatest strain. The difference lies in whether policy is designed around visibility or around productive capacity.

I would welcome perspectives from policymakers, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs.

What should Kenya prioritize right now?


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