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{
"id": 1583312,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1583312/?format=api",
"text_counter": 270,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Langata, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Phelix Odiwuor",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me this opportunity to welcome all the students and especially, Asumbi Girls High School, which is from the county where I was born and bred."
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"id": 1583313,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1583313/?format=api",
"text_counter": 271,
"type": "scene",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "(Applause)"
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{
"id": 1583314,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1583314/?format=api",
"text_counter": 272,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Langata, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Phelix Odiwuor",
"speaker": null,
"content": "I went to Lake Primary School. Many girls from that school joined the honourable Asumbi Girls High School. It was the dream school for many girls in the county. They have continued to excel in their exams and show the same spirit that we had in those days. We hope that they will continue in the same manner. I want to tell them that it does not matter where you come from. You know how Homa Bay County was back then. Hon. Millie can tell you. We grew up in Homa Bay County together. It was prestigious for a girl to go to Asumbi Girls High School. It is still prestigious, and it will always be. Welcome my girls from Asumbi Girls High School. Karibuni sana to the National Assembly. Asante ."
},
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"text_counter": 273,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Peter Kaluma",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " All the visiting schools and students are welcome to the House during their learning tour. Call the next Order."
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{
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"text_counter": 274,
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"speaker": null,
"content": "BILL"
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"speaker": null,
"content": "Second Reading"
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"text_counter": 276,
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"speaker": null,
"content": "The Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill (National Assembly Bill No.15 of 2025)"
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"speaker": null,
"content": "The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
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"text_counter": 278,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
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"content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, before I move the Bill for Second Reading, I want to take a minute to welcome these great girls to the National Assembly and to also inform them that the great Nakuru County is also bestowed and gifted with many elected women leaders. We have Hon. Martha Wangari, the Member for Gilgil; Hon. Jayne Kihara, the Member for Naivasha; Hon. Irene Mrembo, the Member for Bahati; Hon. Charity Kathambi, the Member for Njoro; our Governor, Susan Kihika; and our Senator, Tabitha Keroche. They call us the county of girls. That shows you that women have power and they can fight alongside men and win seats. You should emulate the great ladies of Homa Bay and Nakuru counties. I am confident that you will become great leaders in the Republic of Kenya. I also want to caution our brothers and sisters from Central Kenya. Whenever there is a grammar issue, we need to be very careful not to pick a fight with our brothers and sisters from the Lakeside because we will lose that fight for sure as Hon. Wamuchomba has witnessed on the Floor of the House this afternoon. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I beg to move that The Virtual Asset Providers Bill (National Assembly Bill No.15 of 2025) be now read a Second Time. This Bill was published on 17th March 2025 and referred to the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning for consideration. Before I get to the nitty- gritty, I want to share with you a few quotes from businesspeople across the world. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BlackRock reminds us that virtual assets are reshaping the entire financial landscape. There are huge opportunities for interactions. One of the most respected names in this space is David Solomon who says that cryptocurrencies have defined what it means to store and transfer value. Kenya is ranked third in Africa in on-chain weighted transactions volume. In the last one year, Kenya traded US$2 billion in decentralised protocols, liquidity aggression and synthetic platforms. We have approximately 6.1 million users who use Electric Vehicle (EV) capabilities, Chain-key Tokens, Crypto bridges, Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), gas subtracted Stablecoins and Zero-Knowledge (Zk) Rollups deployment. We have potential in this space to generate at least US$1 billion in terms of foreign direct investment. The passage of this Bill has the potential to create, at least, 25,000 jobs in Kenya in the next one year. We look forward to the new Blockchain technology and tokenisation being used to solve the challenge of budgetary allocation in our country. The Controller of Budget estimates that we have approximately Ksh550 billion worth of pending bills. I look forward to when this can be tokenised so that we can have people across Kenya and around the globe contributing to this space without constraining the Exchequer to be given the limited fiscal space we have in our budget. What are we doing as a nation to embrace this novel innovation in finance that the world is already embracing? At the very least, if this House considers and passes this Bill, Kenya will be the fourth country in Africa to do so by maintaining a progressive spirit of building Kenya to be the Silicon Savannah. Virtual assets are digital representation of value that are created, usually by mining. They are traded or transferred in the digital sphere often using Blockchain or other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT). They have many uses. They can be used as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, or even for investment purposes, The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
},
{
"id": 1583321,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1583321/?format=api",
"text_counter": 279,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
"speaker": null,
"content": "with specific digital ecosystems under cross-border financial systems, depending on their structure and application. The question begs: should we regulate these assets? Kenya has witnessed a remarkable rise in cryptocurrency adoption, with over 10 million citizens now holding one form of digital asset or another. There is significant engagement in peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading, which has earned Kenya a top position in global rankings for trading volume and overall cryptocurrency activity, according to the China Analysis Global Crypto Adoption Index of 2023. This growth demonstrates substantial interest in digital assets, especially among young Kenyans, and highlights the sector’s economic potential. Over the years, our traditional financial regulators, particularly the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), have adopted a cautious approach towards virtual assets. For instance, in 2015 and 2022, the CBK issued cautionary notices to financial institutions, warning against engaging with cryptocurrencies and stating that they are not recognised as legal tender. However, we now realise that burying our heads in the sand is no longer tenable. In this regard, the National Treasury has brought forward the Bill before us, sponsored by the Leader of the Majority Party. When I was elected to this honourable House during my first Term in 2017, I raised a question in 2018 to the then Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya. I asked what measures the CBK and the National Treasury were taking to prepare for the emergence of bitcoin, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrency. The Governor responded that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology were a passing cloud, a fad that would fade away. Today, it is evident that these technologies are no longer a fad. Digital assets, including bitcoin, blockchain, Ethereum, stablecoins and others, are here to stay. The scope of this Bill is designed to regulate all individuals and entities engaging in virtual asset services within or from Kenya. It applies to companies incorporated under Kenyan law, or foreign companies recognised under the Companies Act, and licensed to provide virtual assets as defined in the First Schedule of the Bill. However, the Bill deliberately, excludes certain types of digital representations to avoid over-regulation. Exempted items excluded by the relevant authority include digital representations of value or rights that operates within a closed ecosystem such as in-game currencies that cannot be exchanged for fiat money or traded outside the issuer’s platform, central bank-issued digital currencies, certain non-fungible tokens not used for payment or investment purposes, and others. The Bill carefully, defines its scope to ensure that only virtual asset activities posing financial, consumer or systematic risks fall under regulatory oversight. At the same time, it seeks to preserve innovation and minimise unnecessary regulatory burdens. This approach is particularly important, considering past cases in Kenya where the lack of regulation led to consumer losses. For example, in 2023, thousands of Kenyans lost millions of shillings when the cryptocurrency platform Bitstream Circle collapsed. It had promised high returns and operated without any regulatory oversight, yet it was not licensed or monitored by any Kenyan authority. Such cases highlight the dangers of unregulated virtual assets services and demonstrates the need for a clear legal framework to safeguard public funds. Any person or entity seeking to provide virtual asset services must now apply for a licence from the relevant authority, which could be the Capital Markets Authority, the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}
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