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{
    "id": 1026641,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1026641/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 357,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to support this Bill that has been ably moved by the Leader of the Majority Party and seconded by the Chair of the Committee. I am happy because it has been a long time for a Member of the ODM party to second a Motion and present the report of a Departmental Committee of the House. That is because of the changing times of accommodative politics. I want to congratulate Hon. Gladys Wanga for having earned the approval of the Committee members to chair this Committee. Having said that, I want to start by saying that financial experts in this country, especially immediately the effects of Covid-19 started becoming apparent, got concerned that as a nation we need to pay more attention to MSMEs. I have spoken in this House many times, especially when we were discussing the effects of Covid-19 on the economy. I did say that a lot of attention needs to be directed towards the MSMEs for three critical reasons. One, MSMEs actually contribute over 40 per cent of our GDP, as the Leader of the Majority Party said. So, in order to push the GDP forward, you need to give attention to this sector. Two, this sector of the economy contributes to the tax revenue of our economy. Three, you need to protect jobs in this sector. And a majority of Kenyans are actually employed by the MSMEs. Therefore, in order to provide a ceiling for the economy not to sink further, urgent attention needed to be paid to this sector. That is why we have been calling for a structured way of helping the MSMEs to be able to absorb the shock that has been caused by the effects of the Coronavirus. Almost all businesses are struggling worldwide, whether multinational or small enterprises, but the effect is more advanced on the MSMEs. Therefore, the import of this Bill is to provide a credit guarantee scheme to be able to have these MSMEs to be funded through loaning but the loans are guaranteed by the government. That is the main objective of this Bill. I want to agree with Hon. Wanga that both micro and small enterprises are clearly defined in the Micro and Small Enterprises Act of 2012. But the medium enterprises had not been defined up to now. Therefore, this Bill provides a definition where, besides putting the cap on annual turnover of not more than Ksh100 million, there is also a cap on the number of employees from"
}