Economics
Dangote Lamu Refinery and The Myth of Feedstock First
Why the Lamu refinery’s industrial promise depends on coastal access, processing scale and regional markets—not simply on owning crude oil.
Suzie Mugwe • Public Affairs
Power, politics, economics and public life explained.
Articles on politics, economics, governance, public finance, institutions, and the everyday cost of state decisions.
About the writer
Suzie Mugwe writes about the hidden architecture of public decisions.
Her articles connect policy, power, economics, and lived experience — asking not only what government does, but who pays, who benefits, and what the household feels.
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Politics
Ukombozi: A Property-Law Lesson for Linda Mwananchi
What the collisions over Linda Mwananchi, LINDA and Ukombozi reveal about political branding, legal ownership and strategic readiness.
Politics
Linda Mwananchi and the Battle for Residual Control
Why Linda Mwananchi’s real contest is not who leads it today, but who ultimately controls its brand, crowds, candidates and coalition capital.
Economics
Magadi’s Obsolescing Bargain and the Economics Beyond Tata Chemicals
Why Kenya’s real Magadi test is not simply who mines soda ash, but whether the country can build competitive industries and lasting capabilities around it.
Governance
PCEA’s Milele Hotel Bailout and the Cost of Faith Capital
Why a commercial hotel debt should not become a congregational duty without transparency, structural reform and governance accountability.
Politics
Public Jobs Auction: Can a Lottery Fix It?
A case for stratified sortition: let merit determine who qualifies for scarce public jobs, then use a transparent lottery to remove patronage from the final allocation.
Politics
Ndindi Nyoro and the Interregnum of Kingpins
Ndindi Nyoro’s move to PPK reveals an opposition interregnum in which rival kingpins are building independent centers of power instead of submitting to one leader.
Politics
Will Ruto Emerge as the Condorcet Winner?
A Condorcet-inspired reading of Kenya’s opposition politics, ethnic vetoes, and why President Ruto may remain the least unacceptable second choice.
Politics
Beyond Vision 2030 and the High Cost of Motive Litigation
Why Kenya must move beyond judging national development proposals by suspected motives and build durable institutions with measurable obligations.
Politics
The Sifuna Fallacy: Why Money Alone Cannot Fix Kenya's Slum Problem
Why higher incomes alone cannot solve Kenya’s slum problem without serviced land, secure tenure, infrastructure, and a housing supply able to respond.
Politics
Ndindi Nyoro and the Politics of the Donkey Between Two Bales
A Buridan-inspired reading of Ndindi Nyoro’s Finance Bill absence, fence-sitting politics, and the cost of refusing to choose when the record matters.
Economics
Ruto at the G7 and the Quiet Repricing of Africa
A Bagehot-inspired argument that Africa is punished by the price of perception, and that Ruto’s G7 diplomacy was a fight against the continent’s invisible risk tax.
Economics
The Unseen Budget: Seeing Beyond the KSh 4.8 Trillion
A Bastiat-inspired reading of Kenya’s KSh 4.8 trillion budget, focusing on the fiscal choices, trade-offs and quiet gains that are easy to miss.
Governance
School Arson Wave: Tyranny of the Timetable
Before the 1840s, time was a local affair in Great Britain. Every town kept its own clock by the sun, and noon in one town was not noon in the next. Then came the trains. In Nov...
Governance
Ebola Quarantine Facility: Defending the Indefensible
In 1854, London's Soho district was consumed by the worst cholera outbreak England had seen in a generation. The response of most residents and institutions was to flee. They...
Politics
Hassan Omar: The Anatomy of a Non-Apology Apology
In late 1992, United States Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment from women who had worked with him across two decades. When the...
Economics
Fuel subsidies: If we must subsidize, subsidize the household not the pump
A sharp case for moving public support away from leaky commodity subsidies and toward the households that actually need cushioning.
Diplomacy
Hosting the Africa Forward Summit was Kenya’s Chutzpah moment
Kenya’s Africa Forward Summit moment as diplomatic audacity: not deference, but a claim to convening power and strategic centrality.
Politics
Governor Kangata’s exit from UDA: Principled or Calculated?
A reading of Governor Kang’ata’s UDA exit through Agikuyu ideas of dignified departure, political timing, and self-preservation.
Politics
Gaucho’s benefice and the politics of public boards appointments
Why Gaucho’s appointment to a hospital board is best understood through the old politics of benefice, community voice, and obligation.
Politics
Senator Methu's candour to the president: was it bravery, insolence or parrhesia?
A viral confrontation becomes a deeper question: does Kenya defend frank speech as a democratic rule or only as a factional weapon?
Economics
The fuel GtoG framework is a wicked problem
Kenya’s fuel architecture is not just a scandal story. It is a wicked problem whose solution created its own chokepoints.