If you’ve shopped in Eastleigh, you’ve probably experienced it. You walk into a shop, agree on a price and reach for your phone to pay. Instead of being given a Till Number or Paybill, you are directed to an M-Pesa agent outside and asked to withdraw cash.
For many Kenyans, this is no longer an isolated experience. It has become common enough to sit at the centre of a growing national conversation on social media.
The debate itself has quickly become polarised. Some see any criticism of Eastleigh as an attack on one of Kenya’s most successful commercial centres. Others insist the issue has nothing to do with ethnicity, nationality or geography, but rather with taxation, transparency and fair competition.
At its heart, the question is simple: Why would a business operating in one of the world’s most advanced mobile money economies prefer cash over a direct digital payment?
Twenty years ago, that question might not have mattered. Today, it does.
Kenya has built one of the most sophisticated digital payment ecosystems in the world. Salaries are paid electronically, utility bills are settled through mobile money and everyday spending, from rent to transport to retail purchases, moves through digital channels.
For most businesses, receiving payments digitally is now the default. Yet in some trading environments, customers are still routinely redirected away from direct payment channels and asked to withdraw cash before completing purchases.
The reason this draws attention is straightforward. Digital payments create records. Cash does not.
A payment through a Till Number, Paybill, bank transfer or card automatically generates a transaction trail. It can be verified, reconciled and matched against tax declarations. Cash transactions, unless properly recorded and invoiced, are far less visible, and what the system cannot see, it cannot consistently tax.
This is where the conversation shifts from payments to competition. Imagine two businesses selling the same curtains. One receives payments digitally, issues eTIMS invoices, declares sales, accounts for VAT, maintains audited records and fully complies with tax requirements. The other operates largely on cash.
Both are competing for the same customers and selling similar products, yet only one operates in a system where nearly every transaction is visible and traceable.
The result is an unavoidable question: Are both businesses carrying the same compliance burden?
That question matters because compliance is not free. Formal businesses pay accountants, invest in systems, maintain records, prepare for audits and meet tax obligations that add real cost and structure to doing business.
When businesses operating under different levels of transparency compete in the same market, the issue stops being about taxation alone. It becomes a question of fairness.
This is why the Eastleigh debate has resonated so widely. Representatives of the business community in Eastleigh are on record insisting they pay taxes. A skeptical perception, however, persists.
Many business owners across Kenya feel they operate under strict and increasing compliance requirements, while competing against businesses whose transactions are less visible. Whether every perception is accurate or not is almost secondary; the perception itself shapes confidence in the fairness of the system.
None of this diminishes Eastleigh’s importance to Kenya’s economy. It remains one of the country’s most dynamic commercial hubs, a driver of trade, employment and access to affordable goods, and a regional centre of entrepreneurial activity.
But success does not place any market beyond scrutiny. In fact, the more significant a marketplace becomes, the greater the expectation that the same rules apply consistently across the board.
Ultimately, this debate is not about Eastleigh. It is about whether a modern digital economy can sustain fair competition when different parts of it operate with different levels of visibility.
Most Kenyans are not opposed to profit, competition or success. What they question is a system where some businesses carry the full weight of compliance while others operate with less exposure to it.
And as Kenya deepens its push towards digital tax systems like eTIMS, this debate will not fade. Because a system that sees everything for one business and almost nothing for another is not a neutral system. it is a contested one. And sooner or later, every contested system is forced to answer the same question: Who exactly is playing by the rules, and who is playing around them?
