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{
    "id": 78607,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/78607/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 333,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Raila",
    "speaker_title": "The Prime Minister",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 195,
        "legal_name": "Raila Amolo Odinga",
        "slug": "raila-odinga"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, that was an opinion and not a point of order. We have gone through an evolution. We reached a stage where we said that we must remove the incubator because that was a period of incubation, when we were trying to bring up Kenyan entrepreneurs. A time reached when protection against imports was removed when the economy was liberalized. So, a number of companies survived and some collapsed. I know that there are certain privileges that if you want to get, for example, exemption from taxes for a certain period of time, you cannot get them unless there is a certain percentage of Kenyan participation in the venture. But I do not know as of now any law which requires that a foreigner coming into the country must give Kenyan citizens 51 per cent shareholding. If we did that, we would discourage very many foreigner investors from coming into our country. We must also know that we now live in a very competitive world. That is why we are talking about Kenyan competitiveness. Why are we talking about our competitiveness? This is because if we did not offer certain incentives, the foreign investor will go to a country which offers it. Foreign capital is risk-shy and it will go to a place where there are incentives and protection. We know that we need foreign direct investment in our country. Therefore, yes, there are certain privileges which are restricted to companies with Kenyan participation, but we have also not refused any foreigner who wants to come and invest to come merely because he has not offered so much shareholding to our people. I would like to urge the Members of Parliament to join us in this effort of trying to make our country more competitive, so that we can attract more investment into our country which will help to create more employment opportunities for our people."
}