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"id": 1060374,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1060374/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kiharu, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Ndindi Nyoro",
"speaker": {
"id": 13370,
"legal_name": "Samson Ndindi Nyoro",
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"content": "the enterprise and the businesses of those nations. Fortunately or unfortunately, Kenya lies on that category of economies and countries that must rely on enterprise. In addition, if you compare a country like Kenya, we can be bundled together with countries that are much more developed in terms of their genesis of the economy like the US and the UK, especially in comparison to other economies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia. These are economies that are more robust and have developed on the basis of the minerals and natural resources endowed unto them. Even as I support this Bill, we have to ask ourselves some few issues. One, we talk about business, but if we talk about the evolution of businesses in the current modern economy, every business starts with an idea. After that, the idea is financed and afterwards it is commercialised. There seems to be a disconnect in this country especially in the modern way of doing business. We see many young people endowed with great ideas and ingenuity and imagination, but there is a gap in turning the same into a business and commercialising it. I have said before and I want to repeat that we know the US as a giant economy. When we talk about the economy of the US, you cannot do so without talking about the Silicon Valley. You cannot also talk about the US economy without referencing the Wall Street. There is a connection in that the bright ideas of the Silicon Valley must need the Wall Street for them to be funded, so that they can transform from the mind. They transform from imagination into enterprises that make money for the founders and for those countries. I am at pains because when we talk about funding of businesses, we talk about banks. That is the elementary level. There are other fundings that we can bring forth and even legislate to promote which will go a long way in acting as financiers for the ideas. Something like venture capital which is so nascent in Kenya and almost non-existent and something like private equity that comes to boost businesses that are already on-going. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is also something that is almost forgotten and especially in the ten years of the Jubilee administration, namely, raising money using the secondary markets and especially the Nairobi Securities Exchange. I rise here not a very happy man, and not a very happy Kenyan, because the NSE has become very moribund. We have seen many companies delisting from the NSE than we should see many listing. When we see many companies listing, it means many companies are raising money and, therefore, many companies are growing, employing more and growing the economy. Currently, we have a monopoly where 56 per cent of the entire capitalisation of the NSE is made of Safaricom. It is a good thing to one company, but I do not think it is a good thing for the economy of this nation. We have seen de-listings of companies like Rea Vipingo. We saw one that is happening of KQ and many others and I do not think these are signs of a growing economy. When we talk about ease of doing business, sometimes, we only talk about it in jest, but it is good for us to understand that even before the red tape, beyond the bureaucracy that we must continue to cut so that we can open up space for ease of investors, there is also another hard part of the ease of doing business. We can make the soft part very meticulous, we can make it very well, but no matter how we make the ease of doing business in terms of registration and paper work, investors do not rely on paper work. They rely on good infrastructure like roads. They rely on power. We have a big problem when it comes to power in this country especially for new connections. We have given the Kenya Power a lot of Government jobs that are not paid for to a point where this company is carrying a huge burden that should be carried by the Government of Kenya. In terms of penetration, we are okay especially regionally, but in terms of efficiency and connecting new businesses and homes to electricity, there is a problem. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}