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"speaker": null,
"content": "(Sen. Cherarkey spoke off record)"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Kathuri",
"speaker_title": "The Deputy Speaker",
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"content": "I do not know why you are questioning the Chair, Sen. Cherarkey. You might fail to get a chance to debate this afternoon."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"content": "Sen. Cherarkey must not question the Chair."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise from the onset to support this Bill that has been moved by the Senate Majority Leader and say that the cooperative movement is one of the best structures of organization in business terms that lifts societies. This Bill seeks to put a legal framework that will ensure there is proper governance for cooperatives in the country. Cooperatives have played a big role in our society by making sure that businesses are started well, are resilient, sustainable and more importantly, can grow to greater heights. However, one thing that has always been elusive to us, as a country, is the governance of cooperatives. For a long time, especially when the cooperative movement started in the agriculture products, the challenge was the governance, which was left at the national level. This was largely because for a long time, we had a unitary Government before devolution. However, even at the advent of devolution, cooperatives have remained governed by the national Government. The core and the sense of cooperatives is to help small and medium enterprises. This was the core of the Kenya Kwanza Manifesto; to look at the micro enterprises, small, medium, and sometimes, the growing businesses in our country with the idea of undoing the challenges that these businesses are facing. It has been proven, time without number, that those challenges are best addressed within cooperatives. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, these businesses exist in the local communities where we come from. They are in the counties, constituencies and in the wards where we come from. However, if you look at the governance structure and the legal infrastructure that defines cooperatives, you will find that it is only at the national level where they have been regulated over time. Therefore, this is the first Bill that seeks to give life to Article 186 of the Constitution, which sometime back when the Constitution was being done, saw a nexus between the national Government and the county governments in the running of some affairs, such as cooperatives, as we are seeing right now. I therefore do not see any good Bill that will be better than this, in terms of giving that legal framework that encompasses counties in order to give them a life in the control of cooperatives. For far too long, cooperatives in this country have faced problems and financing is the biggest one. To the extent that we have seen SACCOs coming in place, being a subset of cooperatives and innovating around the idea of creating credit facilities as well as saving facilities. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, a number of these SACCOs that we have seen in our borders have ended up changing lives. Most of the informal businesses that we see today, or the people who are still in the informal economy, over 70 percent of our country is still in the informal economy. The number of people who are employed and taxed in this country is barely 30 percent. This informal economy sector is the jua kali and boda boda sectors, which the NTSA has said has over 1.5 million people. These people can only make sense of growing their businesses within some form of a SACCO, which has maybe chosen the line of financial services and assists its members to figure out those financial services."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, last week, we were with a number of seniors from this House and I thank them. I also know that your contribution reached the people of Migori and your message was well home with the people of Migori. I know you were traveling to Israel, but then you saw the sense of organizing the Migori people who are in the bodaboda industry in SACCOS. You can imagine that they look like small SACCOS and they do not have proper financing to help them acquire boda bodas because the cost of bodabodas tends to be very expensive yet when they organize themselves in those small SACCOs, they are able to lend each other money and support one another to acquire one more, two more or three more boda bodas within their SACCOs. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, through the effort of colleagues in this Senate, we were in Migori County to assist the boda boda SACCOs of Migori. We raised Kshs12 million. In a place where in their SACCOs used to borrow from each other in their small constituencies Kshs50, we have now expanded that tenfold. They are going to borrow and lend one another, even up to Kshs50,000, which is enough to give as deposit and get a boda boda from Watu Credit, Mogo, Progressive and other financiers in the market. The role of cooperatives as demonstrated by SACCOs cannot be understated. The Senate Majority Whip, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale, has just spoken about how cooperative movements have changed the lives of farmers who are giving business sense in the milk industry in the mountain, where you come from, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. You can see how this can transform the lives of our people. Unfortunately, the challenges of governance and mismanagement of SACCOS have constantly remained with cooperative movements. The mismanagement of those cooperatives is not just based on lack of proper leadership and vision to cooperatives. We have had cases where members sometimes lose their contributions in the cooperatives. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is not only the local cooperatives that are struggling. We have seen time without number, the larger governing bodies at the national level make it impossible for cooperatives to have a sustainable way of corporate governance. This issue can be made better with proper regulation, which does not only look at the national Government's role, but also the county governments’ role. That is what this Bill seeks to address by giving life to Article 186 of the Constitution. SACCOS always draw members from the local communities hence they end up not being vibrant in terms of business acumen compared to bigger companies or bigger businesses that have found footing in our economy. Those SACCOS and cooperatives tend to lack capacity and skills which would make them more business competitive."
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"id": 1566489,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "This does not happen because of lack of exposure of members. It happens because of lack of avenues for incentives and support by the governance structure at a national level which is only keen on oversight but does not give support. From the proposal in this Bill, support can come when we have got a county body working together with a national body. That body will then give support to cooperatives in our communities. We have traditional cooperatives in the milk, sugarcane and maize industry. However, they have not done very well. One of the biggest challenges we have with SACCOS is generational gap. There is no legal framework that requires proper transitions and engagement with generational change in SACCOS."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
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"content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, you come from Central Kenya and a study of the milk cooperatives that are there will show you that most of the people in those cooperatives are elderly people. This is because it has been traditionally seen as a place of owners of capital: the people who own the land, animals and the factors of production that define the business in the locality. They are the ones who make it possible for those SACCOS to mushroom."
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