President William Ruto shakes hands Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro/courtesy.
Starting a business in Kenya is a bit challenging even as leaders seek to find ways to ease requirements
for starting one.
Kiharu Member of Parliament Ndindi Nyoro has said that Kenya’s economy can only be turned around
by entrepreneurs not leaders.
Nyoro, who’s the Chairman of National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriation Committee said that for Kenya to improve economically, entrepreneurs should be appreciated.
He took United States of America as an example, saying that young people in US dream of starting
businesses in order to make money since it’s easy to do business there.
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“A young person in US is aiming to go to Wall Street, start a business [and] within a few years he is a
millionaire or billionaire [because] opportunities [and] markets are there [and] there is a level playing
ground,” the legislator said.
He continued: “People appreciate ingenuity and entrepreneurship. That is what I want us to have as a
clarion call for Kenya to change. Kenya is not going to be change by leaders…. it is going to be changed
by entrepreneurs.”
While Nyoro’s clarion call is important for every economy, Kenya is still lagging behind in easing the
requirements for doing business – tough not badly off.
World Bank ranked at 56 globally in the 2022 Ease of Doing Business Index. In Africa Kenya is ranked at 4 behind Mauritius (1), Rwanda (2) and Morroco (3).
Among the factors that affect Kenyan entrepreneurs include high taxes, stringent business registration
process and poor political environment like post elections violence including protests and
demonstrations.
Nyoro said the work of leaders is to make policies the will attract encourage entrepreneurship,
emphasizing that leader’s role is to make favourable policies. He said that such policies are meant to help people to start and run businesses.
“[A] leader can only do policies. When I do a good policy about agriculture as a leader, I am doing it for
the people. When we re doing policies around finance and tech, it is not me as a leader who should
benefit, the benefit is for the people,” Nyoro said.
