By EDWIN MUTAI, emutai@ke.nationmedia.com
The Treasury wants Parliament to enact a law easing
restrictions on the registration of small businesses owned by the youth,
women and disabled.
Treasury secretary Henry Rotich said the current Companies
Act has a standard registration process for all companies thereby
marginalising the three special demographics.
“We need to relax some stringent rules contained
in the Companies Act to allow easy registration of small companies,” Mr
Rotich told the Joint committee on National Cohesion and Equal
Opportunity.
He urged the committee to consider developing a Bill to deal with registration of small businesses.
Mr Rotich appeared before the committee chaired by
nominated MP Johnson Sakaja to explain the progress made by ministries
in implementing the law that requires all procurement entities to set
aside 30 per cent of government procurement for the three groups.
He revealed that the Treasury had registered 57,008 firms owned by youth, women and the disabled.
This figure, he said, excluded companies that have
been registered by the 47 county governments. Out of the total 57,408
firms, 34,408 are for youth, 20,408 for women and 2,408 the disabled.
“We need a legal framework for small businesses to
be registered in a special way rather than through the normal Company
Act requirements. We don’t need to water down what is already in the
Company Act for registration of big businesses,” Mr Rotich said.
Mr Sakaja said MPs are willing to explore the
proposals for a standalone law to govern registration of small business
entities owned by youth and women.
The committee directed Mr Rotich to furnish the
House with reports indicating the compliance by procuring entities to
the 30 per cent procurement law within two weeks.
Mr Rotich said only four government ministries had
complied with the requirement and submitted their reports to the
Treasury and the Public Procurement Review Authority (PPRA).
He said a circular will be issued reminding the procuring entities to send their reports to PPRA.
The law require procuring entities in public sector
including county governments and State corporations to furnish half
year reports to the PPRA on implementation of the 30 per cent
procurement for youth and women.
The committee also directed PPRA director general
Maurice Juma to table a comprehensive list of State entities that have
complied as well as those which have not complied with the law.
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