State to Scrap-off paperwork in business registration
Business
By
Graham Kajilwa
| Jan 27, 2016
Nairobi, Kenya: The government is set to roll out an online business registration platform in a bid to reduce red tape on bureaucracy, corruption cases and do away with manual record keeping.
The initiative which will give birth to an automated type of company registration comes months after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Business registration Act 2015 meant to sanitize business transactions in the country.
This led to the constitution of the Business Registration Service Board that will be mandated to formulate and review policies on issues company registration, partnerships, and societies, trade unions among others.
Currently the board is being headed by Carol Musyoka who sits in East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) board as a non-executive member.
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Inaugurating the board yesterday at his chambers, Attorney General Prof Githu Muigai said the initiative will professionalize the management of various business processes by maximizing on human resource and technology.
He noted that many legal practitioners were spending a lot of time on tussles regarding regulations, rulings and prosecutions issues with little attention to the basics.
"Having oversight on the management of these companies as a regulator will help us get out of scandalous issues that people have pilfered company funds and cannot be traced," he said.
Muigai exuded confidence that such interventions by the government will improve the country's rankings in the ease of doing business: "In the next five years we should expect a business registration service that is so robust and responsive to commensurate our improved rankings in the ease of doing business."
In 2015, Kenya was ranked the third most improved country (improved by 28 positions from 189) by the World Bank due to new reforms and a new companies act that helped improve the country's ranking: "It is totally unacceptable for a middle class country that has a robust technology to still depend on manual records and transactions."
The AG added that there are plans to merge the two main government registration platforms; business registry and personal registry in order to stream line public records
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