WB in new drive to inspect businesses

More than 90 percent of businesses in the country were inspected last year making Kenyan entrepreneurs among the highest checked in the world, the World Bank has said.

A survey by WB said some of the businesses were inspected six times.

Mr Florentin Blanc, who is a Global Inspection expert with the WB Group, however, said the inspections in Kenya lacked professionalism and were only aimed at collecting more money.

Eighty percent of the inspections were by local authorities, which most businesses complain about.

Mr Graham Russell who is chief executive of the Local Better Regulation Office of the UK told a workshop at Intercontinental Hotel the inspectors should also tell business people how to improve them and not only check on problems.

Kenya is among the countries being assisted by the UK to reform its regulatory system at the local level and to create the conditions for a simplified regulatory system.

The workshop on regulatory reform at the local level that started Tuesday and ends on Thursday is meant to make it easier to do business in Kenya and see how devolved government would compete for investors.

In 2009, the WBG findings named Narok as the easiest local authority to do business while the most difficult town was Isiolo.

In a speech read on his behalf by Mr Vincent Rague, Treasury permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua said counties with proper laws would attract huge investments.

He said counties will compete for investments and that those that are well managed with less cost of doing business will be more attractive.

Generally, he said, Treasury was working on reducing regulatory burden to make the country competitive globally.

He said there’s concerted efforts by the Central Bank of Kenya and Treasury to bring down banks interest rates to encourage borrowing.

Licensing reforms were also being carried with plans to operationalise e-registry.

The reforms and the investment confidence people have on Kenya, he said, would see the country’s economy grow by six percent this year.

Inflation, he said, has however gone up to 12 percent due to high food and fuel prices.

City Council of Nairobi treasurer Margaret Osibi said the body is conducting institutional reforms to be at par with world-class cities.

As a result, she said, the council has since been rated at position one in approval of buildings in sub-Saharan Africa and the time period reduced from 30 days to 14.

It now takes a day to get a single business permit from the council following decentralisation of the service, down from 14 days.

The council is also working with Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to fight graft and 12 people have since been arraigned in court.

The council hopes to roll out e-payment in July, has installed software to manage revenue collection and is working on rebranding to improve its image.

The city council staff are to also undergo retraining to be more friendly to the public, their uniform is set to change and they will be known as city ambassadors.

The authority further plans to automate collection of parking fees, a thing that is expected to more than double collections.

A private auditor has also been appointed to look into the council’s accounts for the first time in nine years.

Ms Osibi reiterated the council’s plans to redevelop the whole of Eastlands by demolishing its old houses and coming up with new ones.

“We will remove the existing houses and come up with a new city. We will do the same in Ruai through public private sector partnership. Position for the technical advisor for the project will be advertised next week,” she said.