Chris Agoi, who is in his 40s, will spend this Easter weekend at his rural home in Kakamega. He is not on holiday, as he lost his job in February and is only getting by with the little money he has left.
The packaging company he was working at, which is based in Mlolongo, rendered dozens of its workers redundant as it faced a decline in orders for cartons.
This Easter will not be a good one for me. I am biding my time here because life has become so tough in Nairobi. I can only go back if I find another job, said Mr Agoi.
His predicament mirrors the struggles of millions of Kenyans who are struggling to make ends meet.
On the other hand, their well-to-do counterparts are traveling around the country and the world and making a kill from their investments.
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Hoteliers boom
While Mr Agoi worries about making ends meet, other Kenyans have the luxury to splash on holidays. And there are many of these Kenyans who have spare cash as data on advance hotel bookings shows a spike this season compared to last year.
The Easter holidays offers them a welcome opportunity to dash to various towns across the country, particularly tourist hotspots such as Mombasa, Lamu, Malindi and Diani.
A significant number of travellers, including tourists, booked hotel stays way ahead of the Easter season to enjoy lower prices.
According to the latest Market Perceptions Survey by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), forward bookings especially for March and April 2024 were higher than average.
The survey, which polled 84 hotels across the country, requested hotel respondents for forward bookings received so far for the period January to April 2024.
The results showed slightly lower average forward bookings for January and February 2024 compared with 2023, but higher averages for March and April 2024, said the survey.
Dividends boom
Among the category of Kenyans who will be enjoying their Easter holidays are investors in companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), especially commercial banks.
Thousands of investors in these entities are smiling all the way to the bank as the firms continue to announce record dividends.
Several lenders such as Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, Stanbic Holdings, Absa Bank Kenya, Cooperative Bank, I M Bank have either raised or maintained dividends in what will give their shareholders a broad smile this Easter. StanChart shareholders will, for instance, get a dividend of Sh29 per share for its earnings for the year to December 2023.
This is a significant increase from the dividend of Sh22 they were paid last year as the bank paid 79.4 per cent of the net profit it earned to its shareholders.
Stanbic Bank shareholders will also be paid a record dividend of Sh15.35 per share, an increase from Sh12.60 last year, which is 49.9 per cent of the banks net earnings in 2023.
Cross-listed Ugandan electricity distributor Umeme has also raised its dividends, while agricultural firm Kakuzi Plc maintained its dividend at Sh24 per share.
Investors make a kill in bonds
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As borrowers of loans from commercial banks continue to heave under rapidly rising interest rates, investors in Treasury bills and bonds are reaping big from record high interest rates.
In the most recent bonds auction, the CBK went to the market seeking Sh40 billion from investors. The issuance included a reopened three-year bond, a reopened five-year paper and a new 10-year bond.
On the reopened five-year bond, the government accepted bids from investors at an average interest rate of 18.41 per cent, which means investors will reap big from their investment.
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This underpins the market opportunity available to the well-to-do who have disposable income that they can invest even as the larger segment of the Kenyan population sinks under the burden of high inflation and diminished incomes.
Unluckily for the larger population, this will expand the countrys huge public debt further, necessitating fresh borrowing and new tax measures to repay it.
Easter TwoRise in unemployment as happiness dwindles
That happiness levels in Kenya have dropped for the first time in five years is a poignant indicator of how a large section of Kenyans is feeling especially about their economic situation.
According to the annual World Happiness Report 2024, Kenyans are only the 114th happiest people globally out of citizens from 143 countries that were surveyed. This is a drop of three places from position 111 in the previous years report.
The general decline in happiness can partly attributed to the frustrations that millions of Kenyans are facing as they search for jobs in vain.
For instance, Mr Agoi has just added to the thousands of Kenyans who have lost their jobs i
