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{
    "id": 350301,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/350301/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1048,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Okemo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 198,
        "legal_name": "Chrysanthus Barnabas Okemo",
        "slug": "chrysanthus-okemo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I beg to move:- THAT, this House adopts the Report on the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade on Cooper Motor Corporation (CMC) (Holdings) laid on the Table of the House on Thursday, 13th September, 2012. This matter was first brought to the House through a Question which hon. Dr. Khalwale asked. The Question was relating to the suspension of shares of the CMC at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. As that matter was being prosecuted, the issue of the work permit of the Chief Executive Officer who had just been hired by the CMC came into play. The Question had been directed to the Minister for Finance at the time. As he was responding to that Question, the Minister for Finance said that the matter relating to work permits did not fall within his docket and if hon. Dr. Khalwale wanted to prosecute the matter further, he should direct the Question to the Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons. However, the issue of the suspension of shares still remained. The Minister tried to tell the House – you can get this from the HANSARD – the matter had been seized off by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA). He said that if the CMA was dealing with the matter, it was not necessary for the Committee of Parliament responsible to deal with it. In fact, he used the words; “it would be of no consequence” or something to that effect. However, as the contributions went on in Parliament, other Members of Parliament had a different view and believed that this matter should go to the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade which was the relevant Committee. Since there was nothing stopping any Committee of Parliament from dealing with any matter that they deem fit, the Committee decided to take up the matter because it had very far reaching consequences in terms of the many thousands of small shareholders who owned shares in the CMC and whose shares had been suspended. Therefore, we were saying that if this state of affairs continued, the small shareholders would end up with nothing because they had sunk all their savings into the shares. Therefore, we took it upon ourselves to investigate the matter and come to certain recommendations which we would then bring to this House. It has taken a long time for that to happen. However, what did we do? We decided that we would call many witnesses starting with the CMA because it is the regulatory body that deals with all publicly listed companies on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The CMA appeared before us, not once, but three times. The impression they gave us as soon as they appeared before us was that the matter was under investigation and that it was very complicated because the CMC Board of Directors had been split right in the middle. There were series of controversies. There were a lot of accusations and counter accusations with one faction of the Board taking a different line and the other taking another line. Therefore, it was very difficult for the CMA to resolve the matter."
}