Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 13 – The Government of Kenya has released 8 business reform areas implemented by various government agencies to create a healthy business environment attracting local and international investors.
Getting Electricity, Paying Taxes, starting a Business, Registering Property, Enforcing Contracts, Dealing with Construction Permits, Protecting Minority Investors and Resolving Insolvency will increase Kenya’s competitiveness.
The government has in the last five years centered its focus to plant business reforms that led to the country being listed among the improved in the World Bank’s Business Index. Kenya was ranked position 61 in the 2018 report out of 190 economies globally and is at now in 3rd position in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The business reforms that have been implemented since October last year have been driven by digitization, process re-engineering and the review of business related legislation.
This has led to the reduction of procedures and related costs, increased access to information and transparency.
The introduction of the reforms has been largely contributed by automation that would make the business registration process rather smooth.
The long procedure of paying for several government services has equally been simplified through the online methods or Mpesa.
Property registration will now be possible in 3 easy step, compared to 73 days before. Getting connected to electricity has gone down to 42 days for 100KVA having reliable and stable electricity, down from 97 days last year.
The Nairobi City County has committed 15 days to obtain construction permits which took 160 days before to complete the dreaded procedure.
“Simplified business processes and procedures that can be conveniently accessed online mean that there is more time and money for businesses to focus on increasing productivity and growth, which leads to more jobs and economic prosperity”, said Hon Adan Mohamed, Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of East African Community and Regional Development”. “We recognize that there is still a lot more to be done and we are committed to transforming how business is done and to positively impacting Kenya’s competitiveness especially for our small and medium enterprises,” he said.
The reforms are being implemented with the support of the World Bank Group, various government agencies including the Ministries of Lands and Physical Planning, Energy,Attorney General’s office, The National Treasury (Kenya Revenue Authority), The Judiciary, NSSF, the Business Registration Services (BRS), Kentrade among others under the coordination of the Ministry of East African Community and Regional Development.
