Mobile phone explosion boosts informal businesses

When handyman Alex Theuri puts down his wrenches after laying water pipes in buildings, he picks up screwdrivers and pliers to install electric wiring elsewhere — but there's one tool he's never without. The mobile phone has become the most essential work item for Theuri, a Kenyan plumber, electrician and small businessman who, like so many others in the East African nation, makes a living from various different jobs at the same time. Thanks to the growth in the mobile phone industry in Kenya over the past five years, Theuri says his plumbing-electrical business has grown by about 50 per cent.