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{
    "id": 959157,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/959157/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 535,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Uasin Gishu CWR, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Gladys Boss Shollei",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13278,
        "legal_name": "Gladys Jepkosgei-boss Shollei",
        "slug": "gladys-jepkosgei-boss-shollei"
    },
    "content": "Treasury. They were tabled in this House on 2nd July. The Cabinet Secretary acted in exercise of powers conferred upon him under the Public Finance Management Act (No.18 of 2012), albeit wrongly because consultations on the matter were ongoing and it was therefore, in bad faith for the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury to rush to gazette the regulations while pre- publication scrutiny was actively before the Committee. The Cabinet Secretary stated that the purpose of the regulations relating to Biashara Fund, Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Uwezo Fund and the Women Enterprise Fund was to provide a one-stop shop for target groups looking for business loans from the Government and to improve effectiveness and eliminate overlaps. That may sound reasonable. However, the regulations also were established to ensure that vulnerable and marginalised persons such as women, youth and people living with disabilities, who ordinarily would not access the formal banking sector, would have a place to raise capital to undertake economic empowerment programmes. The regulations were intended to operationalise Articles 27 and 55 of the Constitution, which require that the Government shall undertake affirmative action programmes and other resources in respect of disadvantaged people to ensure that we have equitable development in our State. The said regulations were also intended to operationalise the Presidential Taskforce on Parastatal Reform of 2014, which recommended the merger of certain existing funds. To achieve these objectives, the establishment of Biashara Fund was proposed and sought to revoke the Uwezo Fund, the Youth Enterprise Fund and the Women Enterprise Fund and collapse them into one fund known as the Biashara Fund. That was the presentation of the Cabinet Secretary. In considering the regulations, the Committee held several meetings with officials from the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender and the National Treasury. During the pre- publication scrutiny meetings, Members raised several valid points. First, Members felt that the Ministry ought to consider addressing the challenges that are facing the existing funds and improve their efficiency and resource distribution and the borrowing practices even before they begin to think of establishing a new fund. Second, Members felt that the proposed merger of the affirmative action programmes would not necessarily address the challenges, in that this fund was intended for vulnerable persons who would not access capital. It was also felt strongly that as an affirmative action fund, the merger would lose the identity of important marginalised group, namely, the youth and persons living with disabilities. Third, it was also noted that the proposed regulations proposed that the Biashara Fund funds would be handed over to financial intermediaries, being banks. Therefore, it was felt that if it is an affirmative action fund, it was serving a group of persons who ordinarily cannot access the traditional banking market and cannot meet the stringent requirements of the banking industry, hence the reason a more informal type of funding system had been established in the first place. So, it would beat the purpose of having an affirmative action process in the first place. It was also felt by the Members that the Biashara Fund Regulations also appear to be punitive to those who have been accessing the funds in a bid to encourage other players who are not necessarily marginalised groups. Also, it was felt that Members had not been involved in the identification and development of the regulations. Members of Parliament were not consulted despite the fact that they nominate persons to those committees and they play a role in overseeing the implementation of those funds. The youth who have been accessing the fund or have been beneficiaries of the fund or have interacted with the fund were not consulted. Groups of persons living with disabilities in their different groupings were not also consulted. In fact, there was no public consultation by the Ministry in coming up with these regulations as clearly required by the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}