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{
    "id": 570448,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/570448/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 128,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Chepkong’a",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1154,
        "legal_name": "Samuel Kiprono Chepkonga",
        "slug": "samuel-kiprono-chepkonga"
    },
    "content": "I thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. This is resumption of debate which we commenced yesterday. As you know, this is a very important Bill to the Government and Kenyans because Kenya has been rated as the poorest country in terms of ease of doing business. This is because of a very archaic and backward legislation that was incorporated in 1962; which was substantially borrowed, word for word, from the 1948 Companies Bill of the United Kingdom. The UK Bill of 1948 was overhauled and there is a new Bill at the moment. In fact, the Act itself has been subjected to revisions a number of times and yet it still remains in our books. It has been very difficult to deal with companies which have been committing various atrocities against Kenyans. The passage of this Act will ensure that a number of these anomalies are corrected and a new environment brought into place to ensure that companies that want to do business in this country are able to conduct their business with a lot of ease. The purpose of this Act is to facilitate commerce, industry and other socio-economic activities by enabling one or more natural persons to incorporate as legal entities with perpetual succession with or without limited liability. The aim is to develop a modern company’s law to support a competitive economy in a coherent and comprehensive form. The Bill seeks to consolidate the law relating to incorporation, registration, operation and management of companies and registration, operation and management of foreign companies that carry out business in this country. The Bill has taken into account a number of trends and those that are trending in this part of the globe and internationally to ensure that the Bill or Act, when passed, will reflect the present day circumstances of carrying out business across the world including modern patterns of regulation and ownership. As I stated yesterday, the current Companies Act is written with large companies in mind. In fact, the environment favors big companies. The provisions that apply to private companies are more of exceptions and not the rule making them hard to understand and to apply. The Bill has endeavored to restructure those parts of the law to make them relevant to small companies including one-person companies. What has been earth-shaking is the fact that for the first time in this country, you can now register a company as an individual. You do not need to look for a partner to register a company. The current law inhibits one person registering a company. For instance, Chepkong’a can incorporate a company as a single director without the need of having two directors as required at the moment. What has become very trending is that people cheat by looking for other people including their milk men to become directors for purposes of ensuring that they comply with the law. So, when you are looking for the other director, you wonder who it is. When he or appears before the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) whenever a criminal matter is being investigated, they The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}