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"id": 203644,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/203644/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kimunya",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Finance",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
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"content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move that the Licensing Laws (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2007, be now read a Second Time. The restoration of economic growth through continued hard work by Kenyans has enabled our country to grow at 6.1 per cent as of last year, and 6.3 per cent as at the beginning of this year. The continued growth of our economy reflects the Government's pursuit, over the past four years, of reforms as well as prudent monetary and fiscal policies aimed at ensuring a stable micro- economic as well as macro-economic environment necessary to encourage private sector investment, growth and job creation. As I indicated in my Budget Speech, in order to attract investments and remain competitive in the global economy, Kenya must have an efficient and predictable business regulatory environment. As you may be aware, this august House passed repeals and amendments to various laws to eliminate 110 licences that were impacting negatively on the cost of doing business, yet not adding any value to either the business sector, the regulators or the Government. We promised then that we were continuing to look at all 1,300 laws, and this Bill proposes to eliminate more licences and also to simplify others in order to increase and consolidate the gains that were achieved by the elimination of the licences that was done last year. Some of these licences are either outdated or impose disproportionate costs on users as compared to the actual or anticipated benefit. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe, from our earlier discussions here, hon. Members alluded to them. Where you stop for one licence, one county council tells you cannot do something and when you move to the other one, you are told that you cannot paint your car or do something else. These are the kind of laws that we are removing, so that business can be conducted within acceptable standards without barriers to participation by any one. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the repeal and the amendment of the licensing laws is basically aimed at lowering the cost of doing business to encourage existing investments to expand. In addition, it will lead to initiation of new investments, new employment opportunities and improve the standards of living of our people. These reforms are all intended to transform our country into a preferred investment destination on this side of our continent. Our country is also poised for accelerated development with a view to achieving our dreams, which are contained in our Vision 2030. This requires some very radical transformation of our economic, social and political systems. In laying this foundation for economic pillars of the Vision, we must build an enabling environment for the private sector in order to fully unlock its potential and become globally competitive. To achieve this in the medium-term, we need to encourage growth of business through improved governance and reduce the cost of doing business. Soon, and very soon, probably in the course of the next one week or two, we will be announcing some very good news in terms of reforms in this sector. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I believe that part of that good news that we will be announcing will be the glory that we would like to share with this House, because we have carried out these reforms together. Today will be another historical moment as we then remove all these barriers to businessmen in terms of doing away with some of the colonial laws; they have been there but serve no purpose. We have now gone through them with a fine tooth comb, and will be happy to have this House support their removal from our statutes, so that we only have the laws that add value to business, to people transacting business in Kenya and open up our country as the preferred destination. I just wish to again note that all this is being done in good faith with the intention of making our country the preferred investment destination, not only for Africa but for this side of the 4002 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES September 18, 2007 region. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, against that background, I beg to move and ask, once again, Mr. Obwocha to second."
}