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{
    "id": 234812,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/234812/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 203,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir. I also stand to support this Bill. As the Minister said while Moving this Bill, it is a very important Bill. Indeed, the insurance industry is a very critical sector of our economy because it affects businesses and lives of people. That is exactly why we should have proper regulatory machinery that will ensure that the industry November 14, 1006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3619 functions smoothly. This is something that ought to have been introduced earlier. The Minister rightly said that we are moving to be in tandem with development not just in this region, but also universally. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the public has been suffering a lot in the hands of insurance companies. As Mr. Kiunjuri said, people go to insurance companies to make claims, but they are not paid. There are two reasons for this: One, it is because there are unscrupulous companies which do not follow the proper code of ethics. Secondly, is the undercapitilisation of some of these companies. A number of insurance companies get permission to operate without a proper capital base. That is why I would have liked the Minister to make use of this opportunity to increase the starting capital to Kshs150 million. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to go next to the issue of the management of the Authority; that is the Board of Directors. I want this Authority to be independent and we must provide for its independence in this Bill. There is a Chairman who is to be appointed by the President. There is a Commissioner of Insurance who will be appointed under Section 3E(1) and I will come back to that. There is a Permanent Secretary and then there is a Chief Executive Officer. Then there is a Permanent Secretary who is a civil servant. The Chief Executive Officer will again be appointed by the President. The Chief Executive Officer of the Capital Markets Authority is an appointee of the President. The Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya is also an appointee of the President with five other members not being public officers, appointed by the Minister. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, first, where is the independence going to come from? It is he who pays the piper who calls the tune. In the other Acts which we have passed in this House in the recent past, we have provided for various stakeholders to nominate various board members. For example, the Kenya Roads Board (KRB) Act ties the hands of a Minister because there are several other stakeholders who are mandated by the Act to nominate people who are qualified to sit on that Board. I would like to see this happen to this particular Act so that the Authority is fully independent. Secondly, this Authority is going to regulate the insurance industry in general. There is, therefore, the need to have a representative of the Insurance Association of Kenya in the Authority. How is this Authority going to know the trends within the industry if these people are not represented? They may have, for example, come from the industry but they would have terminated the link. It is important that there be somebody in this Authority who will be representing the Association of Insurers within the principle of \"no taxation without representation\"."
}