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{
    "id": 193524,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/193524/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 106,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Finance",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, last year, I exempted from stamp duty the transfer of a family property to a limited liability company whose shares are wholly owned by a family to encourage consolidation of family property and to encourage families to register all their land in institutional structures rather than one person in the family hiding the title deed. This year, I am going a step further to exempt from stamp duty the instruments that are used for the transfer of property to a listed property investment vehicle. This measure is expected to further encourage voluntary land consolidation and discourage non-productive use of land. Mr. Speaker, Sir, to amplify this further, we have people in this country who have several pieces of land across the country and cannot use any of them productively, but can now, under this, transfer them into a collective investment vehicle and could even use them to sell shares or even list them. I am sure that we will tap into the potential of that land without physically keeping on moving to each of those titles. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in order to facilitate a more cost-effective means in which listed companies can communicate with their shareholders and drawing on the experience of the KenGen shareholders and the Safaricom shareholders where the numbers have increased substantially, I propose an amendment of the Companies Act in order to provide listed companies the option to publish in at least two of the local dailies and on at least two days, the notice calling the annual general meeting, a summary of the annual statement and the auditors report. This amendment will also allow for publication and circulation of information in electronic form when calling for annual general meetings. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I now move to measures on contribution to national development. Last year, I proposed changes to our cigarette excise regime from a Retail Selling Price or RSP-based to product characteristic in order to bring into the tax net all the imported cigarettes for which we can all determine as selling price until they are actually on the shelves. In view of the current inflationary pressures, the RSP-based regime has been challenged by the increase in the prices moving way above the brackets and is actually restricting free adjustment of prices by containing people within certain brackets. I am aware of the challenges that were brought before the House in terms of absorbing the change. In order to address the challenges and to bring into the net the imported cigarettes, and to move the current price-based practice to one that is based on product characteristics practice, I propose in the interim to introduce a hybrid of RSP-based and characteristic-based excise regime for cigarettes. Now, this will enable the industry players to make 1160 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES June 12, 2008 the necessary adjustments to eventually move to the characteristic-based regime when they realise the two amount to the same thing. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in addition and in support of the priority programmes that we plan to implement, I propose to allow the cigarette smokers to be proud Kenyans by making additional token contributions averaging about Kshs7 per packet towards development."
}