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"id": 240725,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/240725/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dr. Kituyi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Trade and Industry",
"speaker": {
"id": 293,
"legal_name": "Mukhisa Kituyi",
"slug": "mukhisa-kituyi"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, ask hon. Sungu to listen to what I said. I uphold the right of hon. Members under the law and our Standing Orders to bring Motions and work towards the creation of Bills and enactment of laws. But, as I said, the principle is that to the extent that the Government is undertaking work of similar nature, and that the Government is willing to invite an hon. Member to work with the Government agency that is working on a similar matter, there is no point in duplication of effort. So, the onus is on me to prove that we are doing something similar. Secondly, the spirit of this Motion can be developed in another area, where a private Member can do better than a Minister. Now, let me give the details. I mentioned yesterday that we are already involved in an exercise of statutory reform about business environment improvement initiative which is being co-ordinated by the Ministry and has far reaching implications in terms of what statutes have to be amended. Already there are 48 laws which are either being repealed or substantially amended. Some of the laws being repealed include the Trade Licence Act. We are abolishing the need to be licensed before you start trade. However, some of the laws being strengthened are consumer protection laws. This is because we believe that as we liberalise, we need more supervision and enhanced protection of the consumers from potential abuse by unscrupulous businessmen. There are two different components with regard to this matter. Even as we speak today, this country has very good laws for consumer protection, but they are not being implemented properly because of a number of things. First, the custodian of the consumers interests is most importantly a movement of consumers. This movement is supposed to strengthen consumer awareness and consumer capacity to protest adulteration of what they consume. Consumers must have better capacity to demand services as the most important impetus for getting good services than the creation of statutory organs that are supposed to promise the delivery of all these services. I will give an example of this. On the basis of express statements from hon. Members of this House, I sent my officers to Keroche Industry in Naivasha. We were satisfied that some of the alcohol that they were putting into the public domain had not been inspected. Our officers closed their premises, but they rushed to a court of law in Nakuru which stayed the execution and they came back under police escort to break the padlocks on the doors and start selling those substances again. If we lived in a society where there was a strong consumer lobby, that would not have happened. The challenge on hon. Members is: How can we strengthen the movement of consumer rights protection more than statutory institutions? There are things the Government can and there are also things a lobby of consumers is best suited for doing. The spirit of enhanced consumer protection can best be nurtured in development, for example, statutory strengthening, raising consumer awareness and strengthening of a consumer lobby. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I showed in this House an outrageous thing recently: How a chain of supermarkets can go to a court of law and receive an injunction that the standards inspection agency should leave them alone and that this be done for four years. Even when we suspect that goods that are outdated can be repackaged and put back to the shelves, the courts of law have stopped us from trying to prove what we are suspecting. Unless we live in a society where such an outrageous thing cannot be done, however much we make good laws and create boards, the 2354 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 26, 2006 good intentions that we have to protect the consumers will be sabotaged by a duplicity between the unscrupulous business people and dubious rulings from courts of law. One of the main things that have made it difficult for us to score great success in the war against counterfeit goods, adulteration and abuse of human rights has been the absence of synergy between officers who are trying to nail people who are importing counterfeit, adulterated or substandard goods and officers who punish culprits when they are found. I mentioned in this House a year ago how police officers impounded a truck with counterfeit goods worth Kshs10 million. The peddlers of those goods wanted to offer a bribe of Kshs1 million to the police officers who refused. They set up a trap and arrested the men who were trying to bribe them. These people were taken to court and charged with trading in counterfeit goods and later found guilty. They were fined Kshs200,000 and allowed to take away the goods. First of all, how would you tell the policeman who rejected a bribe of Kshs1 million to go and arrest a person who imports counterfeit goods next time, if at best, that person will only be made to pay a fine of Kshs200,000 and be given back the counterfeit goods that he was trading in? Secondly, how do you create a disincentive against counterfeiting and dumping of substandard goods if the payments you make in courts are less than one-tenth of the value of the counterfeit products which are surrendered back to you? Unless we strengthen synergies between law enforcement agencies, inspectorate services and the courts of law so that all actions are seen to be transparently fair, we cannot win this war. We might have the best institutions for the protection of consumer interest, but still continue being vulnerable to the abuse of unscrupulous business people and corrupt officers of law. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, my Ministry wants to engage and invite every person who is interested in assisting us in the war against counterfeiting and the abuse of consumer rights. I mentioned yesterday that I shall be introducing before this House the Anti-Dumping Bill. This is the most significant statutory instrument in the past decade with regard to strengthening Government protection of the interests of the consumers and those of the patent holder against adulteration and abuse by unscrupulous traders. I will invite any hon. Member who has any suggestion about how to strengthen this legislation to come on board instead of, parallel to this effort, creating another mechanism through which you proliferate public bureaucracy. There is no need of establishing a board which will be sitting to make recommendations which will be sent to the Attorney-General's chamber. The matters will end up in court and we shall be faced with cases similar to Keroche and Nakumatt cases. The collective challenge to all of us is to keep Government momentum on strengthening legislation for consumer protection in trade. We need to strengthen the operations of the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). Importantly though, we need to trigger the development of a strong movement for the protection of the rights of consumers. This can best be done through a lobby movement than legislation of a board. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those remarks, I beg to oppose and invite the Mover of this Motion to come on board so that we can strengthen the efforts that we are already putting in place."
}