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{
    "id": 1506824,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1506824/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 328,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Aldai, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Marianne Kitany",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I stand to second. At the outset, we want to thank the Private Member at the Senate and Hon. Irene Mayaka, who is the co-sponsor of this Bill at the National Assembly, for bringing up the Start- up Bill. This Bill has already gone through the Senate and it is now before the Departmental Committee of Trade, Industry and Co-operatives. It is a Private Member's Bill and the Government is also very interested in this Bill. The Ministry of Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and, more specifically, the State Department of Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMEs), is also very keen on this Start-up Bill. That is because the young people who are the cornerstone of this country in terms of development are left out, especially when it comes to investments and developments. When they go out to start a business, if it is a beautiful idea, it is snatched away from them! They never get any support at all to grow that idea into a business that can run and work very well. A case in point is the famous product that we use today called the M- PESA system. The M-PESA system was an initiative and an innovation of a young man in this country. Before the young man knew it, the product had already been taken over by an international company called Vodacom. And before we knew it, it had become a big product that is now being run and managed by Safaricom. The young man who was the inventor of that particular product never got any reward for the work that he did. The product that the President was talking about today, the celebration of one year in service, that is e-Citizen, is a Kenyan product. E-Citizen is a creation of young people who have thought and used technology to make life easy for us, as Kenyans. We are able to pay for services that we get from the Kenyan Government in an easy and comfortable way. You can sit in the comfort of your home and transact with the Government 24/7. It is unlike before where people used to wait until Government offices are opened between 8.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. and, by the time you get to a Government office, perhaps, the officer in charge has hung his coat and gone away to do his or her business. He or she leaves you there waiting for hours on end, not knowing what time he or she will turn up to serve you. That service has come in handy, and is today helping the Kenyan people and the public. The Start-up Bill, as much as it came from the Senate and is a Private Member's Bill, has a lot of interest from the Government. The Government wants and intends to make amendments to it. Therefore, as much as we support, we will support amendments that will come from Government and stakeholders as well, so that everybody comes in and gives their input into the Start-up Bill. One of the objects of the Start-up Bill, as recognised by the Government, is the recognition of start-ups. What is a start-up? Is a start-up a company that has just started now? It could even be a growing concern, meaning they have never been able to grow from where they started. That will be considered as a start-up. In considering those start-ups, we will be considering what we call incubation and how we can incubate or be able to nurture those companies that are start-ups so that they can grow and become real industries that can employ many of our youth. We will look at what we call accelerators and technology transfers. A lot of those start-ups today are in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) or the technology sector. That is where most of them are."
}