Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 482192,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/482192/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 330,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Onyura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 12833,
        "legal_name": "Michael Aringo Onyura",
        "slug": "michael-aringo-onyura"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Bill. It is a very important Bill because it is part of what will make our Government and state activities to be operational and to run well. I support the Bill. I looked at the section dealing with regulation of competition. It is important that in business, competition be put on a level playing ground. Regulations should be clear and open. They should be easy to interpret and also transparent. The Government should not be involved in business. The Government should be a referee. It should be there to regulate. I urge that Government gets out of business. Any of the businesses that the Government owns like the parastatals and so on should be privatized so that we have a fairer competition when it comes to business competition. We know that the Government, because of bureaucracy and complacency, tend to be inefficient and slow. So, it should get out of business. I have also noted the provision on NSSF. The improvements happening to NSSF are geared to bringing it closer to being a pension scheme rather than a provident fund which it is now where workers are paid in lump-sum and it becomes difficult to provide for their livelihood. When they are given a lump-sum, they tend to misuse the money. Sometimes, it is just a loss because somebody is paid the money and he gets into a bus to travel and he ends up losing the money. I support this idea of trying to support NSSF for it to be a proper pension fund. The Bill will assist very much in streamlining taxation. It is important that that continues to be done. Our tax laws need to be improved in order to make them easier to understand and apply. As the rules become easier to apply, understand and interpret, that enhances compliance as well. In that breath, I must also commend the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) for doing a good job in terms of collecting revenue for this country. They are hitting their targets very well. All I can say is that I encourage the leadership in that Authority to do whatever it takes to give incentives to those who work there and to keep the staff encouraged and motivated. I know that this has happened before, but it is something that needs to be kept up. I noted that there is provision on mining. This is an old sector in terms of legislation and regulation. It is now that we are modernizing it. Just the other day, we were discussing the Mining Bill in order to bring it up to date and have it properly controlled and ensure that it benefits the country and the local communities where minerals are found."
}