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"id": 1095802,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1095802/?format=api",
"text_counter": 314,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM-K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Makali Mulu",
"speaker": {
"id": 1955,
"legal_name": "Benson Makali Mulu",
"slug": "benson-makali-mulu"
},
"content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether you might have experienced this, but most grandmothers are not literate. I am sure some of us might be lucky to still have their grandmothers or their children’s grandmothers still alive. They use their grandchildren to withdraw money from M-Pesa. Even when they want to read anything on the phone, they ask their grandchildren to do it for them. Most of them have suffered. Their grandchildren have gone to an extent of going through their phones and doing the fuliza thing. When you send Kshs5,000 to your mother, she tells you that she has only received Kshs3,000. So, you ask your mum what has happened. Little did she know that it was actually fulizwad by the grandchild and since the grandchildren are many, she might not say who exactly did that. That has really exposed our people. That is why it is important that through this Bill, we see a number of things happening. One of them is that the CBK, through this Bill, will license digital credit providers. Through licensing, the registration requirements will go through a process to make sure that anybody who registers has been taken through that process and has been confirmed not to be a person who is likely to con Kenyans. The licensing process is very good. I like the way the Bill has captured it. The Bill states that once this becomes an Act of Parliament, anybody who has been practicing digital lending will only have six months to register with the CBK. That means that the whole market will be controlled and if anything goes wrong, we can easily know where to go and who to punish. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the other important point which makes a lot of sense to me is the issue of supervising the digital credit providers. They should be supervised and over time, there should be somebody who looks at what they are doing either quarterly, semi-annually or annually and a report is prepared for each of them to know those who are becoming rogue and who is still behaving in line with the law. Another important thing is the issue of suspending or revoking licenses, so that by the time you start, you know very clearly that if you misbehave, your licence can either be suspended or revoked. On that note, you must adhere to the market requirements. That is why as we move to the Committee of the whole House, I have looked at what is proposed in case you do not adhere to the Act. The only penalty being proposed in Clause 3 of the Bill is that you will be convicted to imprisonment of a term not exceeding three years or a fine not exceeding Kshs5 million or both. To me, that is not good enough. As we move to the Committee of the whole House, there will be need to look at this Bill again and see whether we can enhance that section, so that if people commit an offence in line with this Act, the penalty is enhanced. That will, to some extent, deter people from taking this Bill lightly. The other important thing in this Bill is the issue of data protection. That is a problem. Data is very important. As you join some of the platforms, you provide so much data about yourself. If that data is not protected, it could easily be misused in other areas. Instead of working on the regulations, there will be need to make sure that the data provided by Kenyans is protected and cannot be misused for other bad reasons, including money laundering. That becomes very important. At the same time, we will also be protecting our consumers. The world has become a global village. You find that you are borrowing everywhere and there are those bitcoins that are all over the place. Even as we engage in this important sector - because we cannot say it is not important; it is with us and will be with us forever - we should make sure that the way we conduct business on those platforms does not expose Kenyans. The other important bit is the issue of reporting. The Bill also demands that there is regular reporting on what is happening in the sector. That is captured. As we look at the regulations, the 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."
}