There is a particular kind of comfort that comes from simplification.
In policy circles, simplification often arrives dressed as reform: streamline the process, reduce fragmentation, centralize engagement, and create order. It has the clean appeal of a well-designed dashboard. One login. One portal. One pathway to clarity.
That is the logic animating Kenya’s proposed Public Sector–Private Sector Engagement Bill, 2025, which seeks to establish the Business Council of Kenya (BCK) as the primary vehicle for structured dialogue between government and the private sector on issues such as taxation, regulation, investment facilitation, and trade.
The bill assumes that Kenya’s engagement challenge is mainly a coordination problem. Too many voices. Too much duplication. Too much noise. Too many lobby groups are “pulling in different directions.”
So, the state proposes a single coordinating structure. The story writes itself: Kenya will finally have a coherent private-sector interface that engages government in a structured, predictable way.
But here is the uncomfortable truth that Kenya’s innovation economy keeps proving again and again:
A complex economy cannot be governed through simplified engagement architecture without losing something essential.
And what it loses is not cosmetic. It is structural.
It loses speed. It loses technical depth. It loses diversity of perspective. And ultimately, it risks losing the very quality of policy-making that reform is meant to improve.
That is why FINTAK has opposed the Bill not because engagement should not be improved, but because the proposed model risks achieving the opposite of what it promises.
The problem isn’t engagement; it’s the quality and speed of engagement
Let’s begin with a principle that should be non-negotiable in any modern state:
Engagement is not a ceremony. Engagement is infrastructure.
Done well, it is the invisible plumbing that makes an economy work, especially a high-velocity, innovation-led economy like Kenya’s.
Engagement is how government avoids:
- surprise regulations that trigger market panic,
- tax policy missteps that scare capital,
- compliance deadlines that crush SMEs,
- rules written in theory but broken in practice,
- and laws that look good on paper but fail in execution.
In fintech, this is even more critical.
Fintech is not simply “financial services in a modern wrapper.” It is a high-frequency environment. It lives in real-time. It touches consumer trust daily. Its risks—fraud, cyber threats, systemic stability, and AML/CFT vulnerabilities are real and immediate.
Engagement for fintech cannot be quarterly. It must be continuous.
This is why FINTAK, as the voice of fintech in Africa, is deeply concerned about two key design features of the proposed framework:
- Associations and lobby groups must register with BCK before engaging the government.
- Policy proposals must be channeled through quarterly submissions.
These two ideas may sound procedural and harmless. But in practice, they create a gatekeeper and a delay mechanism in a country where agility is an economic survival tool.
Kenya is not one economy it is many economies living in one country
Kenya is often discussed as though it is a single economic unit. But anyone who has ever tried to build across sectors here understands the deeper reality:
Kenya’s economy is not a straight road. It is an ecosystem.
It is agriculture and mobile money. It is insurance and logistics. It is banks and informal markets. It is telecom infrastructure and university research. It is capital markets and community SACCOs. It is global consulting firms and small software agencies.
It is also radically unequal in size and power, meaning any centralized structure tends to amplify those already loud.
We are not a mono-industry economy. We are a diverse, specialized, multi-speed economy. And that is exactly why over 130 business associations exist in the first place.
They did not appear because Kenyans love committees. They emerged because each sector discovered, painfully, that without specialized advocacy, policy becomes blunt, and blunt policy cuts the wrong parts of the economy.
This is why the Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI), itself a structured lobby, has argued that Kenya’s economy is too diverse and specialized to be adequately represented through one coordinating entity. Their warning is instructive:
A single, centralised channel for engagement is more likely to reduce interaction, weaken quality of dialogue and undermine effective policymaking.
This isn’t defensiveness. It’s systems thinking.
The romantic myth of “one voice” collapses when the details arrive
In corporate environments, a single voice can work because a corporation has one balance sheet.
But a country is not a corporation.
A country is a tension of interests.
- Banks want stability; fintech wants speed.
- Telecoms want infrastructure certainty; startups want regulatory flexibility.
- Manufacturers want tax relief on inputs; Treasury wants revenue.
- Consumers want protection; innovators want room to experiment.
A healthy system does not force these interests into false harmony. It manages them through structured contestation.
The bill, however, leans toward forced coherence, and that is where risk begins.
Because coherence, in this context, often becomes code for:
- fewer voices reaching policymakers,
- narrow consensus shaped by big players,
- watered-down technical input,
- and policy that is “balanced” in theory but ineffective in practice.
One voice becomes a single point of failure.
And single points of failure are exactly what modern system designers remove, whether in payments infrastructure, cybersecurity architecture, or national policy ecosystems.
The gatekeeping risk: who gets in, who gets heard, who gets sidelined
Under the bill’s proposed framework, industry bodies would be required to register with BCK before engaging government.
This seems like administrative tidiness. But the bigger question is political and economic:
Who becomes legitimate under this system?
Kenya’s innovation economy is shaped heavily by emerging segments:
- regtech,
- climate fintech,
- embedded finance,
- diaspora investment platforms,
- crypto compliance infrastructure,
- AI-driven credit scoring,
- blockchain-enabled procurement tools,
- women-led microfinance innovations.
Some of these segments are not well institutionalized. They don’t have mature associations. They are still emerging, and that emergence is exactly what makes them valuable.
If engagement becomes filtered through registration and gatekeeping, you risk excluding the frontier.
And the frontier is where growth comes from.
This is not hypothetical. In many economies, centralized councils have historically become conservative by design, not because they intend to, but because:
- Established incumbents dominate agenda setting.
- Small players lack the capacity to influence priorities.
- and “consensus” becomes the organizing principle.
But innovation is not consensus-based. It is disruption-based.
A council optimized for consensus is often hostile to disruption even unintentionally.
The quarterly submission model is incompatible with an economy running in real-time
Let’s talk about the quarterly submissions.
This is one of the most dangerous parts of the proposed design because it underestimates the velocity of modern economic risk.
Association Of Kenyan Insurers (AKI) gave a brilliant example: port congestion.
If congestion happens and one must wait for quarterly submissions, the delay translates to disruption, lost opportunities and real economic costs.
Now bring that closer to fintech.
What happens if:
- A fraud pattern spikes in merchant payments?
- A cyberattack escalates into systemic risk?
- A new compliance rule triggers unintended exclusion?
- A sudden interpretation of a tax rule disrupts digital commerce?
- A reporting requirement breaks APIs and settlement pipelines?
If sector engagement becomes periodic and quarterly, you don’t improve engagement; you institutionalize lateness.
And in fintech, lateness doesn’t just cost money. It costs trust. And trust is the most expensive currency.
There is also a constitutional issue: public participation cannot be replaced by “representation.”
Kenya’s Constitution is explicit about public participation.
Not participation by proxy. Not participation via umbrella structures. Real participation.
The private sector is not a club. It is citizens engaged in enterprise, and enterprise shapes livelihoods.
A central council may inadvertently shrink participation by collapsing it into representation.
This is why the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) and other stakeholders have cautioned that the Bill may introduce unnecessary bureaucracy and could weaken the constitutional public participation framework.
This point matters deeply because economic governance legitimacy is not built through efficiency alone.
It is built through inclusion.
And inclusion cannot be centralized without distortion.
The hidden institutional problem: a central council can become a policy laundering mechanism
Here is the risk no one wants to say loudly, but Kenya has lived long enough to know it exists.
A centralized “engagement” body can become a convenient tool for the government to claim legitimacy without real dialogue.
It can become a box-ticking mechanism:
- “We consulted the private sector.”
- “The Council was involved.”
- “Stakeholders were engaged.”
Yet the engagement itself may be narrow, rushed, or politically shaped.
This is what policy laundering looks like:
Policy decisions are pre-made, engagement becomes procedural, and dissenting voices are absorbed, diluted, or delayed.
That is why KNCCI argued that the formation of BCK should have been private-sector-led and private-sector-regulated.
Because if the private sector does not own the structure, the structure may end up owning the private sector.
The better model: decentralised engagement, coordinated outcomes
To be clear, FINTAK is not opposing coordination.
We are opposing central control.
There is a better approach, one that keeps the strengths of Kenya’s diverse engagement landscape while improving coherence:
1) Sector-first engagement at ministry and regulator level
Engagement should remain where expertise sits.
- Fintech and banking issues must engage CBK, Treasury, ICT, ODPC, and regulators directly.
- Insurance issues must engage IRA and sector bodies directly.
- Telecom must engage the Communications Authority and infrastructure policy teams directly.
- Software and IT services must engage digital governance policy teams directly.
Each cabinet secretary should own a structured engagement within their mandate. That is governance.
2) A “network model” instead of an apex monopoly
If the government insists on coordination, the right model is not a single funnel.
It is a network of councils sector councils that feed into a coordination layer, without gatekeeping.
This mirrors modern systems design:
- distributed inputs,
- coordinated outputs.
3) Continuous consultation mechanisms
Kenya should modernize engagement the way fintech modernized finance:
- digital issue registers,
- published response timelines,
- transparent tracking of stakeholder proposals,
- rapid forces for urgent sector issues,
- sandbox-based consultation for emerging innovation.
Quarterly paperwork is not reform. It is regression.
4) Ensure private-sector ownership where councils exist
If an umbrella body must exist, it should be
- private sector-led,
- private sector regulated,
- and the government partnered.
Not government-structured and private sector “participating.”
Why this matters: Kenya’s competitiveness depends on how it governs
This bill is not just about engagement structures.
It is about Kenya’s economic philosophy.
Does Kenya want to be:
- a competitive innovation economy, or
- a procedural bureaucratic economy?
The difference is not rhetorical.
It affects:
- investor confidence,
- cost of compliance,
- speed of market adaptation,
- capacity for innovation,
- and the inclusiveness of growth.
In the next decade, Africa’s leading economies will not win because they have the most natural resources.
They will win because they build:
- smarter institutions,
- adaptive policy,
- pro-innovation governance,
- and high-trust regulatory environments.
Kenya has a strong head start. But head starts expire if governance becomes slow.
And this bill risks slowing the exact relationship that must remain dynamic: government and enterprise.
Bottom line: Kenya needs a chorus, not a soloist
There is a beautiful irony here.
The bill aims to reduce fragmentation, but the reality is:
The diversity of voices is not the problem it is the advantage.
A country’s policy strength comes from hearing:
- the small players,
- the big players,
- the technical experts,
- the frontier innovators,
- the uncomfortable dissenters.
It comes from plurality.
So yes the intention is commendable.
But the architecture is flawed.
Kenya does not need a single gatekeeper for private sector engagement.
Kenya needs:
- stronger sector institutions,
- faster policy feedback loops,
- more technical consultation,
- and wider participation.
FINTAK’s position remains clear: we support engagement, collaboration, and an improved business climate, but not through a model that centralizes dialogue and risks weakening it.
If Kenya wants a policy that enables growth, it must build engagement systems that mirror the modern economy: distributed, agile, and technically informed.
The future cannot be coordinated through a funnel.
It must be built through networks.