PATRICK NJOROGE: Central Bank Governor Patrick Njoroge will be one to watch in the coming year. His many achievements include the continuing roll-out of the new currency.
CBK was mandated to spearhead production and roll-out under the 2010 Constitution which prohibits the use of a person’s portrait on currencies. The new currency has also been fashioned to allow the visually impaired use them.
The 2010 Constitution had given CBK a five-year period to replace the old currency with the new ones but the process has been delayed with multiple court cases.
British firm De La Rue International which has been printing Kenya’s currency for the last two decades won the Sh11 billion tender to print the new look currency.
With the stock of outstanding notes and coins in Kenya at about Sh1.4 trillion, according to CBK statistics, the new generation currency will circulate concurrently with the current notes and coins.
According to Njoroge, the phasing out of the old currency currently in circulation will require Sh18 billion over a three year period.
CBK will also be required to carry out mass awareness campaigns across the country. With coins already in circulation Njoroge will next year have to go against the Consumer Federation of Kenya as the lobby group has already filed a suit seeking to stop CBK from further printing of the new-look currency.
Cofek wants CBK to be compelled to withdraw the ones that have already been printed and conduct the process afresh to include public participation.
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PHYLLIS WAKIAGA: The declaration of manufacturing as a top priority investment area to drive economic growth has seen manufacturers and the government forge ahead toward this goal.
The sector intends to increase its contribution to GDP from the current 8.4 per cent to 15 per cent by 2022.
The agenda has identified eight priority sectors under the manufacturing sector, including agro-processing ,textile, leather, construction, materials, oil and mining,iron and steel and ICT.
In 2019, according to Wakiaga, they intend to bank on the SME support accorded by Government to strengthen its contribution to the GDP.
It will also be intresting to watch how Wakiaga leads manufactures in critical discussions with EAC partner states to adress a myriad of Non-Trade Barriers that continue to impede the sector. The barrier so kenyan sweets and chocolates banned from accsessing Tanzania and Uganda.
However, this will largely require that EAC partner states sustain resolutions arrived on reported NTBs and enforce the decisions of the EAC Secretariat.
Even as the sector passionately objected implementation of the e-tax stamp duty system- Excise Goods Management System, KRA still rolled it out.
KAM, led by Wakiaga made an appeal to President Uhuru Kenyatta to suspend the implementation until all sticking points are ironed out, this will be key to watch in 2019 as its impact is major in the cost of doing business.
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DAN GITHUA: The local retail sector has seen a major shift in 2018 with players adopting global benchmarks to improve customer and supplier confidence, and maintain the edge against the multinational players.
Dan Githua is in the midst of it to run one of the leading retailers in the country, Tuskys Supermarket, at a time when other supermarkets are financially struggling and at the edge of closure.
He was appointed in May 2015 to lead the strategic phase running 2015- 2019 of the family-owed.
He had also worked with the same company as the head of Internal Audit for three years to the year ending 2012 and also as a consultant for the board.
In October, Githua fronted the opening of a new branch at Crossroads Mall, Karen at a cost of Sh20 million, to be in the same area as South Africa’s retailer Game at the Waterfront mall and French’s retailer Carrefour at The Hub.
Tuskys in May also announced to have made Sh150 million investment to open a branch at Diamond Plaza II shopping complex in Parklands. The entry of international players has played a role in shifting the paradigm in the industry from competition based to profitability strategies.
Tuskys is eyeing to intergrate its fashion subsidiary store, Mavazi to all branches and hit 100 in the next three years.
Githua announced to make more adjustments and investment in 2019 with also a likelihood of listing at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
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BOB COLLYMORE: This year was probably not the best for Safricom boss Collymore. He was out of office for at least 10 months since October 2017 due to ill health.
Even in his absence, Safaricom went ahead to register a Sh55.29 billion in net earnings for the year ending March 2018 and a 20.2 per cent rise in net profit to Sh31.5 billion for the half year ending September 2018.
As he returned to work, Collymore defended Safarciom, saying it does not hinder competition as described in a dominance report commissioned by Communications Authority.
The report, yet to be adopted, proposes that Safaricom offer rivals access to its transmission sites and its vast network of mobile money outlets to increase competition in the sector.
2019 will mark the ninth year since Bob took over as Safaricoms CEO, and as CA prepares to make adopt or drop the dominance report, collymore is a man to watch if in any case the report is adopted as it is.
It will also be interesting to see how he performs as a board member of Vision 2030, a position he has been appointed to by President Uhuru Kenyatta effective December 14,2018.
Also to watch, is how Collymore intends to drive the growth of Safaricoms e-commerce platform Masoko.
This follows a slow down in the pick-up of some products launched by the telco during the year such as M-pesa one tap.
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CHARLES KETER: Energy CS Charles Keter will be seeking to meet the target of connecting 2.5 million Kenyans to the power grid under the Last Mile Connectivity programme.
The Last Mile connectivity which has already connected 1.5 million users under the first phase, has been riddled with a lot of controversy, from fake meters, inflated figures to meet targets of homes connected and delays in connecting customers.
The programme which seeks to connect poor households to the National grid has also left Kenya power with at least Sh2.8 billion in bad debt.
This is because, despite being able to connect a large number of people to the grid, more than half of them did not consume the power and did not pay for it.
With Sh28 billion already received from the African Development Bank to finance the project, the energy ministry will have to come up with a way to ensure that increased power connectivity correlates with power uptake and production.
While the whole country has been up in arms over construction of a coal powered plant in Lamu to the extent that President Uhuru Kenyatta said he was committed to Kenya generating all its energy from renewable sources by 2021, the Energy CS says deal is still on.
Keter will have to battle out with environmental lobby groups, both local and international over the Lamu coal power plant and the environmental impact it will have including a massive carbon footprint.
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PATRICK TUMBO: Tumbo was named CEO for Sanlam Kenya in August after resigning from Jubilee Insurance in July 2018 as the Kenya CEO.
His appointment followed Sh1.53 billion net loss reported in the six months ended June 2018 largely on bad investment decisions to lent to struggling firms.
This prompted the company to issue a non-profit warning for the full year performance.
The NSE-listed non-bank financial services firm was forced to write off over Sh2.2 billion it had lent to Chase Bank, Imperial Bank, Athi River Mining, Real People and Kaluworks.
However, in his appointment Sanlam credited Tumbo to help improve firm’s financial books after his leadership to growing Jubilee’s Kenya business from Sh4 billion to Sh24 billion during his tenure.
Tumbo was quoted having stated to ‘adopting a variety of remedial interventions’. This would include focusing on insurance business rather than bonds.
Tumbo is expected to continue with the implementation of Sanlam’s five-year strategic plan which include adoption of wider unified products and service distribution model.
Among them also included stepping up the consolidation programme following Sanlam Kenya’s acquisition of the former Gateway General Insurance Company 2017.
The strategy targeted managing all general and life insurance clients under one roof across all branches in the country and integrating all the firm’s businesses under one brand for clients’ convenience.
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ISAAC AWUONDO: Isaac Awuondo, is the Commercial Bank of Africa’s group managing director.
The CBA group head with over 32 years experience in the finance and banking sector has seen the successful launch and running of M-shwari in partnership with giant telco Safaricom.
This coming year people will watch his plans to merge Kenya’s largest privately owned lender with tier-two lender NIC Bank. With discussions still at the preliminary stage, the lender linked to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family is set to bring its prowess corporate and micro lending through M-Shwari to the table.
This, coupled with NIC’s strength in asset financing is set to shake up the country’s banking sector as the new entity formed will be at par with banking giants Kenya Commercial Bank and Equity Bank taking into consideration their customer base.
The new bank which is expected to be more digital offering both corporate and asset financing will have a complementary base of 38 million customers and a combined asset value of over Sh444 billion edging out Cooperative Bank, third largest bank in the country in terms of assets.
The new entity formed would be at par with banking giants Kenya Commercial Bank and Equity Bank taking into consideration their customer base.
CBA currently has an upper hand in terms of customers, thanks to M-Shwari. The platform has already disbursed more than Sh230 billion in loans with average amount per customer at Sh3,300.
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JOHN TANUI: The government transferred ownership of Konza Techno City to the Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KoTDA) under Tanui to co-ordinate development of the city.
The delegation was taken from National Land Commission (NLC) whose land acquisition procedures have proven to have taken long for some investors with at least one German University falling out in the process.
KotDA will overlook allocation of land to investors on 50-year renewable leases to develop the city whose plan was conceived in 2008 as part of vision 2030.
Financing the project has been slowed down the project over the years.
In 2015, KoTDA floated an international bid inviting investors to set up a technology university, office blocks and shopping mall among other amenities in the proposed city.
This year Tanui said the government had committed to invest more than Sh80 billion ($780 million).
However, Tanui announced that Konza Technopolis’ take off became real in 2018 as phase 1 Horizontal Infrastructure and Development of a Research Institute entered critical implementation stage.
The city dubbed, Silicon Savannah is expected to use technology in integrating transportation operations, sanitary collection, treatment and re-use operations, storm drainage operations, water system operations, e-governance data centers, security parking and informational signage landscaping.
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FRANCIS WANGUSI: Wangusi resumed work officially in February sixth this year, after being sent on compulsory leave by the Communications Authority board.
The leave was meant to facilitate an audit. This concerned investigations into what is said to be malpractice in staff training and promotions at the regulator.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court lifted the suspension in January 30, 2018 while in September, CA board ended the feud with Wangusi after it signed an agreement not to interfere with his contract.
Registration of the consent at the High Court was the final settlement of the dispute.
During the year, Wangusi has largely been on the limelight for his stance against Sim Swap fraud, cross-network cash transfer and the now popular dominance report.
Wangusi is the man to watch in 2019 largely because of the dominance report yet to be adopted by CA.
The report carried out by London firm Analysys Mason had some policy recommending that market leader Safaricom share its infrastructure with rivals.
Besides it would see the telco be split into two and Mpesa services hived off as a separate independent entity.
On mobile interoperability, Wangusi hopes to launch a common mobile money wallet next year that would lead to full interoperability between service providers
The system, according to him, will allow seamless transactions between users, and will be owned and managed by the CA .
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JOHN NJIRAINI: Will 2019 see KRA boss leave the civil service? This year saw Njiraini, who has been at the helm of the authority since 2012 battle it out in court over his exit at KRA having attained the mandatory retirement age. The commissioner general was first appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta six years ago when he was the Finance minister.
The KRA board retained him in March 2015 for a second three-year term that lapsed in March this year. However he is still in office.
In July, Justice Nelson Abuodha dismissed a case by Activist Okiya Omtatah challenging the extention. The judge said Njirani was appointed on a fixed term contract which is permissible under Section 80( 2 ) of the Public Service Commission Act. “The contracts are governed by their instruments of appointment,” Abuodha said.
As the debate on whether he is to stay or leave extends to 2019, the taxman has introduced a new tax eying Small scale traders that will take effect from January 1. The presumptive tax is aimed at increasing revenue collection in the coming financial year 2019/2020 and expanding tax base. The tax has received numerous objection from the National Youth Enterprise Development Fund, and Kenya National Chamber of Commerce among other institutions. This is likely to spark a debate once it is implemented from next week.
Additional Revenue Enhancement Initiatives expected in 2019 from the taxman include Data driven compliance, Resolution of tax disputes, Enhanced scanning to detect concealment and roll out of the ICMS, Implementation of Regional Electronic Cargo tracking to tackle transit diversion, Real Estate Initiative among others.