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{
"id": 1144298,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1144298/?format=api",
"text_counter": 256,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kiharu, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Ndindi Nyoro",
"speaker": {
"id": 13370,
"legal_name": "Samson Ndindi Nyoro",
"slug": "samson-ndindi-nyoro"
},
"content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I rise to support the Committee. The status quo is that the Women Enterprise Fund, the Uwezo Fund and the Youth Enterprise Development Fund operate independently. If you look at the three singularly, the Women Enterprise Fund is the most efficient. I think amalgamating the three will be infiltrating inefficiencies into the Funds that are already efficient. The issue of the operation costs is neither here nor there because that is a secondary matter. The primary matter in so far as the three Funds are concerned is on lending money to the vulnerable, especially to the categories that are targeted by the three Funds. Therefore, I support the Committee’s position that these Funds should operate as they do; independently, and we try to bring about efficiencies into those that are not as efficient. Also, amalgamating them and taking their functions to private banks is taking the money into swamps because the people who are targeted by these Funds are people who are un-bankable. Banks would ordinarily never touch or lend money to these people. Therefore, the way they operate is much better, especially if we can develop some regulations in so far as increasing efficiencies and funding is concerned. I want to speak on a broader matter because these Funds operate in the space of finance and the space of giving credit, especially to groups. One, we need to give more independence to these Funds so that they can concentrate most of these resources into groups. It is very hard, especially in a group set up, to find people who are homogeneous in their thinking and, therefore, when they are given money, they most likely use it in a manner that is in tandem with all of them. Therefore, we need to encourage individual borrowing and individual lending by these Funds because it is much more efficient and versatile. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, when we talk about finance and lending, we need to look at this matter broadly, especially by giving these three Funds more weight and more roles. In Kenya, in many cases, we rely on the traditional sources of finance: That is, you go to a bank and get credit or you go to the Women Enterprise Fund and when you show the ability to pay, you are given credit. However, we need to give these three Funds the ability to be versatile to explore something called private equity (PE). Across the world, another big source of finance is private equity, where money is invested in going concerns and the people who avail the money are given stakes in those enterprises. The other one is VC that gives money especially to ideas and incubating them into becoming real businesses. I say so because the economy of the world is gravitating towards modernity and we cannot afford to remain in slumber land of yester years’ businesses and yester years’ modes of finance. Majority of the big companies in the world actually got their money from VC and PE, and not necessarily in the traditional manner of getting finance. If you go to a country like Nigeria, by drawing into those kinds of finances, there are like three unicorns, namely, start-ups that are valued more than one billion dollars or more than tier-one banks in Kenya and these are start-ups. They are able to draw money and finances from people who would later get a stake in the companies and, therefore, they will be coming to the same business together. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, as I wind up, if you look at even the big companies in the US currently and especially the big tech, they started as ideas but within that idea setup, they got people who…"
}