The City with no Luxury Hotels

Hello 👋🏽 It's Brian from The Kenyan Wall Street.

Kisumu City is the crown jewel of the Lake region but there are missing amenities that could complicate its tourism ambitions…

This and more in today's newsletter edition…

The City with no luxury Hotels 

By Fred Obura 

Kisumu’s tourism ambitions are not failing for lack of visitors, flights, or civic enthusiasm, but for something more prosaic: there is nowhere luxurious enough to put power. The city has learned to attract conferences, officials, and business travelers…only to watch the most lucrative events drift elsewhere in search of brand assurance, security protocols, and chandeliered boardrooms. A hospitality market dominated by mid-range hotels has quietly capped Kisumu’s pricing power, length of stay, and international credibility.

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What Kenya's Trade Deficit Reveals…

By Brian Nzomo

Kenya’s trade problem is not that it sells too little, but that what it sells and what it buys live in different economic universes. The country exports tea, flowers, and regional staples to nearby markets, then turns to Asia and Europe for machinery, steel, vehicles, and capital goods priced in hard currency. This imbalance has quietly turned trade into a one-way siphon, pulling dollars out faster than exports can replace them. The result is a widening deficit that no amount of regional goodwill can offset, forcing the central bank to lean on its reserves.

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Washington’s Harsh Goodbye 

By Fred Obura

The U.S. exit from a global mining governance forum came immediately after the body concluded technical training in Kenya’s gold belt. The programme addressed mine closure, environmental bonding, and abandoned-site risks; areas where regulatory failure has long outlived the mines themselves. Washington’s decision was framed as administrative housekeeping, but in mining regions like Migori, it functions more like a crucial subtraction.

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OPINION : Building Payment Systems That Work For Africa

By Maurice Bisungo 

Africa’s payment problem is not a shortage of technology but an excess of misplaced assumptions. In Kenya, where mobile money is infrastructure rather than innovation, systems that privilege cards, constant connectivity, or sleek interfaces routinely fail at the point of use. What works instead are tools built for patchy networks, SMS confirmations, and the quiet demand for certainty that money has truly moved. The lesson is unglamorous: payment systems succeed not by importing ambition, but by respecting habit.

Read this piece here >>>>>

On your watchlist

In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Safaricom's CFO, Dilip Pal, to discuss the strategy behind this 40B Medium-Term Note (MTN) program. We explore why Safaricom is shifting from traditional bank finance to fixed-coupon green notes.

Heads Up…

Snapshot 

Briefs

🍻 Kenyan distributor Bia Tosha files an urgent Nairobi High Court case to block Diageo US$2.3Bn sale of its 65% stake in East African Breweries PLC to Japan Asahi Holdings over pending competition litigation.

🏦 Nestle widened its recall of selected infant nutrition products beyond Europe to Africa, the Americas and Asia.

🇬🇭 Ghana consumer inflation slowed to 5.4 percent year on year in December 2025 from 6.3 percent in November, marking the twelfth consecutive monthly decline

Today in History 

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