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{
    "id": 576052,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/576052/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 190,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mwaura",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13129,
        "legal_name": "Isaac Maigua Mwaura",
        "slug": "isaac-mwaura"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak on this Bill. If you look at the Memorandum of Objects of this Bill, you will find that it is a very good Bill. The overall objective is to give incentives for various enterprises to have a special treatment of sorts with regard to access to basic amenities that would require the manufacturing of goods and services in this country. But some issues arise when you go through this Bill. If there are other existing legislations with regard to this issue, this Bill does not seem to address the manner of transfer of a public land to a special economic zone. If that were to happen, how will it be regulated? Does it mean a special economic zone developer will be the owner of the title of the land upon which the special economic zone will be developed? Will it be on a leasehold? This is very critical because we know of situations where when you give tax incentives, waivers or concessions to economic processing zones like the current ones we have - the Export Processing Zones - you will find that people only operate for that amount of time and when the time lapses, they move on to other countries. On the permanency of investment in this regard, it is my opinion that this Bill needs to be strengthened to ensure that people will not be coming to establish special economic zones for a certain period of time, and when they have recovered their investment and made supernormal profits, they close shop and go away. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, in my opinion, I would like to imagine that the many powers vested upon the Cabinet Secretary to establish the special economic zones would have been domiciled within an Authority. This is so that there could be a procedural issue with regard to the approval of such economic zones thereof. Why am I saying this? There must be some form of guideline, regulation and objective way in which this can be done. I am sure that if these powers were part of the Special Economic Zone Authority, then everybody would be seeking the approval of that Authority and the Board that is established with the aim of benefiting from the firm that has been established. That is something that needs to be looked at. If you have a cursory reading of this Bill, you will have the feeling that the real discretion and the absolute powers to establish a special economic zone lies with the CS, and in this case, I would want to imagine the CS responsible for Trade or Industrialization. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I see these special economic zones helping us in terms of specialisation of production of goods and services. This is because each and every special economic zone can have an expertise of a particular issue and if this was to be the case, then this is a very good Bill. It seeks to incentify the creation of jobs in this country. Recent statistics indicate that there are about one million job seekers who are churned out of our systems every year, and 800,000 find their way to Nairobi. Kenyan economy is highly concentrated in the capital. 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."
}