We refer to an opinion piece published in the Business Daily on Tuesday, 24^th January, 2023 on page 24, titled “Remove red-tape at companies registry to spur business growth”.

Please allow us to make some clarification on the issues raised as follows:

• The Government undertook pointed action to undertake both legislative and process reforms to facilitate the ease of doing business which were spurred by the establishment of the Business Registration Service in 2015

• The formation of BRS as a State Corporation has brought about a great deal of positive engagement with our clients who have applied to register their businesses in significant numbers over the years since we started the reform agenda;

• Notwithstanding the automation and digitalization of records, due diligence both from the BRS and customer end has to be undertaken within the prescribed timelines in the service charter to ensure the laid down procedures are followed to avoid fraudulent transactions and grievous mistakes;  
• There is a Joint Liason Committee which encompasses the Institute of Certified Secretaries, the Law Society of Kenya, Nairobi Branch and the Service where upon agreement, practice notes which are available on the BRS website https://brs.go.ke/practice-notes/, user manuals and guidelines available on https://brs.go.ke/manuals/ , have been developed.
• Missing files have been contained following an ongoing exercise that BRS commenced in 2017 to undertake a data verification well-known as Link a Business. To date, this exercise has addressed the of creating a digital snapshot of a client’s file and once completed, all registered entities in Kenya will be on the online portal.
• We have made concerted efforts to improve our clients’ user experience both on the digital platforms and at our registry where the need arises to have a physical interaction. Our clients experience a new ergonomic environment at the BRS premises.

• The future looks even brighter with the ongoing re-engineering process which includes design and execution of data clean-up as well as deployment of robust, effective, efficient, and modern web-based systems (Electronic Document Management System) that will ensure all digitized records are organized and retrievable in a manner that will enable us to achieve greater efficiency through the end-to-end process.
• We aim in the coming months to take BRS to the next level of digital transformation and customer user experience but also improve our overall process efficiency and ensure that we are better prepared to meet our operational and strategic business objectives.
• We readily welcome all observations, critiques and pointers from our stakeholders with the aim of continuously improving on all areas in the pursuit of our goal of being customer-centric to facilitate the doing business environment.
• I openly invite further engagement from the writer of the article as well as all our stakeholders on the matters raised or any other area of concern.

For further enquiries and clarification, please contact Corporate Communication via Communication@brs.go.ke

KENNETH GATHUMA

DIRECTOR-GENERAL