{"id":6545,"date":"2019-11-13T10:06:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T07:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6545"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","slug":"is-kenya-ready-for-the-platform-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/13\/is-kenya-ready-for-the-platform-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Kenya Ready For The Platform Economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Lynette\nMukami<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When\nUber first began operating in Nairobi four years ago, early adopters were only\ntoo happy to have an on-demand taxi service that was cheaper and took away the\nheadache of haggling over fares. The initial driver partners were said to have\nmade a killing with anecdotal reports indicating that they got returns on their\ninvestment, mostly from loans, in under a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the\nbeginning, traditional cab drivers were oblivious but soon caught on to the\ndisruption that was happening right under their noses. Predictably, the\nrealization that there was a new player eating their lunch led to an explosive\nreaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four\nyears and several e-hailing driver strikes later, it is clear that the law,\nindustry players and policymakers are still not prepared to deal with\ntechnology-based disruption that has also gone on to hit other sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>REGULATORY\nHOLES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Uber\nand Estonia-based Bolt were just the beginning. The arrival of other disrupters\nlike Airbnb and most recently, Egypt-based Swvl, has exposed Kenya as an\nantiquated regulatory wonderland. Policymakers appear to have been caught\ncompletely flat-footed by the influx of platform-based businesses whose models\nKenyan laws do not understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far, the initial State\u2019s response has focused on how to tax these enterprises while issues such as fair competition and labour are relegated to the back burner. For instance, the Ministry of Tourism on realizing how lucrative the Airbnb space has been for homeowners has moved to tax those profiting from the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US-based homestay rental platform had 6,500 Airbnb listings in 2018, which earned homeowners Sh510 million between January and September that year. The previous year, they had raked in Sh390 million, underlining how popular it has become among local and international tourists\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessdailyafrica.com\/datahub\/Is-Kenya-ready-for-the-platform-economy\/3815418-5346174-n993sm\/index.html\">Read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lynette Mukami When Uber first began operating in Nairobi four years ago, early adopters were only too happy to have an on-demand taxi service that was cheaper and took&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}