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{
    "id": 203650,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/203650/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 308,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade wanted to discuss this particular Bill with the Minister. Unfortunately, we were not able. Since he has brought it earlier, we will propose few amendments to it. This is a very timely Bill which has come before the House. We need to attract investments to this country. There are a lot of licences in this country which are purely revenue-oriented. The Government just collects taxes for its use. They are not actually meant to facilitate business. They do not facilitate the operation of business in the country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, Uganda, which is our neighbour, took these steps long time ago. They lumped together many licences. They only remained with those licences which were purely needed either for environmental control or health purposes, but not those licences meant to collect revenue. This is because the Government can use other avenues of collecting revenue other than through licensing. The Government has got many ways of getting money from the economy without using licences. The revenue aspect of licensing has the effect of introducing such a long bureaucratic process for investors in this country. As a result, we have lost a lot of investors to September 18, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 4005 Uganda and Tanzania. In Uganda, for instance, if an investor wants to invest in a business, it takes about one week. He gets all the necessary licences to start a business within one week. In Kenya, it sometimes takes as long as one year for one to be able to invest and start off a business. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I remember one investor from America who wanted to invest in a farm in my constituency. It took one full year for him to start the investment. First of all, that farm used to belong to the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA). He required a licence from the LBDA through a process of negotiation. It was then discovered that the land was a trust land owned by Siaya and Bondo county councils. He had to negotiate with them. Since these were two local councils, they had to go to the Ministry of Local Government for direction. Again, since it was an irrigation project, he had to go to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation which was then headed by Ms. Martha Karua in order to get a licence. Since it was also an agricultural project, it had to get another licence from the Ministry of Agriculture. Since it was a foreign investment, it had also to get some support from the Ministry of Finance to get some exemption and so on. So, to get all those things together, it takes close to one full year for an investor to come and start investing in the country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there was a technical committee which went through all those licences. I think it was called a Guillotine Committee. That committee did a thorough job. We discussed with them all the licences they were proposing. They were more than what the Minister has brought. I hope the Minister is going to look at all those aspects of the licences, which are purely of a revenue nature, and remove them from our statutes. That way, we can start having a one-stop centre, which was proposed. But even with that one-stop centre, how many people are we going to have there to give licences and facilitate the movement, if those licences are very many? It makes the one-stop centre completely in-operational. We cannot have all the senior officers who are able to make decisions in that one-stop centre, if the licences are too many. However, that one- stop centre can operate successfully, if the licences are few, manageable and of distinct purposes. That is either environmental, health or something which is meant to protect our country. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support the proposals by the Minister."
}