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{
    "id": 1503272,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1503272/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 512,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Daadab, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Farah Maalim",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "There are two things that I wanted to bring to the attention of the Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning. Under our current practice, Hon. Kimani, you can register a local company regardless of whether you are a Kenyan or a foreigner. You can also do so as an investor from outside for the short period you are here. This is where you justify your money by buying small properties or anything else you would want to do. You will be allowed to register a company. Also, you may just stay with a residence permit, even as a pensioner, then you go ahead and register a company. That company will be a local company; it is not a foreign company. A foreign company is a presumption that the Articles of Association and everything else is in a foreign country. It is a multinational business. So, that is a window that you need to look at very closely. The other bit which I had mentioned to you when I was on the Chair, you clarified it. However, I think we need to look at it a bit more closely. The issue is on fully funded donor projects. In 100 per cent donor-funded projects they usually want you to do its procurement process in their own places. They would prefer their own companies to take advantage of it because they want to take some money back home. When they give you free money, that will be it. Let me tell you one thing. Traditionally, folks in Treasury and many other Government offices – I do not know whether we are going to change that situation now – do not have any interest in the fully funded donor projects. When you are given a 100 per cent grant, they will have very little role in it. When it is a loan, they will like it because they will do the procurement themselves. That essentially is one of the ways that corruption has flourished here. If the money is a loan, we will pay ourselves. Our own officers will do the contracting and through that they can make their own small commissions. When it is a 100 per cent grant, there is very little enthusiasm in Treasury because the Treasury will have very little role in it. So, we have to look at that closely. I have been around much longer than most of you. I can remember when we had the Kenyanisation, Africanisation, and indigenisation of the economy and a lot of things that happened then. It was very easy those days to find in Bishara Street and many other places businesses like Kaluma Enterprises or Kaluma Limited. However, Kaluma had a little role in it and there was a small amount of stipend that he could be given every month. People were doing a lot of things like coffee roasting and coffee trading. The Transport Licensing Board (TLB) those days had restrictions on the extent you could allow non-Kenyans to get involved in business. There was effort to try and protect that for Kenyans, but there were people who always found a way to beat it. Trucks were bought by somebody else and buses were owned by a foreigner. Because the foreigners were using a local’s licence, they paid the locals something little for it. So, probably things are not going to be as bad as it was in those days, but I really want to encourage it. I want to borrow a leaf from the South Korean model of business. When we got independence, the South Koreans were poorer than us. As a matter of fact, the President of South Korea at the time was called Park Chung-hee. He was an Army General. He wanted to"
}