Achievements

Ease of doing business

2018

The World Bank Report, Doing Business 2019, ranks Kenya at position 7 among the 10 most improved economies in the Doing Business Index, a strong statement of confidence by the world about Kenya’s economic outlook. Kenya is up 19 places in World Bank ease of doing business ranking. Kenya has been ranked position 61 globally, up from position 80 last year. BRS together with its strategic partners and stakeholders strive to improve this ranking to position 50 by the year 2020. More

Companies Registry

2018

The Companies Act, 2015 brought transformation in the registration process by allowing the adoption of electronic platforms to streamline the process. This has seen a shift from manual registration and lodgment of documents to an online registration system on the e-citizen platform. It is now possible for one to make the following applications on the e-business-

  1. register business names, companies, and limited liability partnerships,
  2. make changes through the online platform,
  3. obtain the Status Reports of companies (formally referred to as “CR12”) which is auto generated,
  4. File annual returns , and
  5. Cessation business.

Due to the aforementioned transformation of the Companies Act and in implementing the statutory mandate of maintaining registers, data and records on registries, the Service has introduced a process known as “link a business” as part of a records clean-up exercise and an audit trail. This will help eliminate the issue of missing files and reflection of wrong information to the Registry. The application is a free service done by the proprietor of a business, a director of a company or the company secretary. Link a business has further made the process of obtaining the “CR 12” easier since it has been automated.

Movable Property Security Rights (Collateral) Registry

The MPSR Act operates as a law governing secured transactions between a creditor and a lender where in return for a loan advanced the borrower gives movable property as security or collateral. What the law does is that it diversifies the type of collateral a person can give as security moving from the traditional form of security e.g. land, motor vehicles, machinery to other forms of movable collateral such as stock in trade, household furniture, crops, bank accounts, proceeds of sale and even personal items such as phones and laptops. For the borrowers, this law provides an environment where it is easier for them to access credit. It also becomes easier for the borrower use one collateral as security against different loans. For the lender, it creates an environment where they are more secure in lending credit to a class of people they would not normally lend to, and accept as security collateral they would not traditionally accept as such. The Act not only gives provisions to protect the lender in event of default, but it also establishes a collateral registry, which acts as a public notice to any other entity interested in the collateral, that there is a prior interest and should they chose to lend against the same collateral, they will become second or third in priority in event of default.

Official Receiver Registry

The Act now regulates Insolvency Practitioners under Part II of the Insolvency Act. These are individuals who are appointed to administrate, liquidate an individual or company that is insolvent. The appointment can be done by the court, creditors, directors or the Official Receiver depending on the circumstances of each case. The Act allows members of two professional bodies’ that is, ICPAK and LSK to be the licensed Insolvency Practitioners. The Insolvency Act does not allow automatically members of these bodies to be Insolvency Practitioners; they have to apply to the Official Receiver. In the previous Acts, lawyers were not obligated to apply to the Official Receiver for them to handle bankruptcy and winding up matters.

Hire Purchase Registry

The Hire Purchase Act, CAP 507 applies to and in respect of all hire-purchase agreements entered into after the commencement of this Act under which the hire-purchase price does not exceed the sum of four million shillings or such other higher or lower sum as the Attorney General may, after taking into account market forces from time to time prevailing, prescribe other than a hire-purchase agreement in which the hirer is a body corporate, wherever incorporated.

There are 432 registered Hire Purchase companies, 50 of which are active and approximately over 4000 registered Hire Purchase agreements from the year 2015 to date.

Process Reform at Business Registration Service

  1. Digitalization and Automation
    1. BRS resolved to move some of its services to the e-Citizen platform in line with the government policy of spreading outreach of service to the public on a digital platform to improve on efficiencies for the Ease of Doing Business Reforms. 
    2. Currently, all new registrations of companies, business names and limited liability partnerships are done online. The electronic platform enables members of the public to make their applications online thus removing the need to physically present themselves at the BRS facilities or Huduma Centres in effect reducing the number of steps taken when registering a business entity which will improve the ease of doing business ranking for the country. BRS is currently undertaking company registrations within a 48 hour time period for the BRS portion of the registration period.
    3. Payment for the above services has also been moved to the Government Digital Payments system that affords a transparent and secure mode of revenue collection. This step has indeed seen a steady rise in revenue collection due to stemming of revenue leaks and an improvement in the processing of applications.
  2. Data Clean-Up in the Companies Registry
    1. Due to the aforementioned transformation of the Companies Act and in implementing the statutory mandate of maintaining registers, data and records on registries, the Service has introduced a process known as “link a business” as part of a records clean-up exercise and an audit trail. This will help eliminate the issue of missing files and reflection of wrong information to the Registry. The application is a free service done by the proprietor of a business, a director of a company or the company secretary. Link a business has further made the process of obtaining the “CR 12” easier since it has been automated.
    2. What “link a business” does for an individual who has already registered a business entity is to make sure his/her records are already up to date, enable easier access to the Registry and ensure that their records are protected against double registration, or fraudulent activities. The director or company secretary uploads the current status of the company as they know it. From the back end, the companies registry counter checks with the information they have in the registry and if it matches it is approved and uploaded into the system. If it not a match then the individual can visit the companies registry to verify the information and update the same accordingly.
    3. Link a business is contained on the e-citizen platform which provides access to government services to the common mwananchi on an online platform. To link a business, all one has to do is open an account on the e-citizen portal. Once the account is opened, the user should click on the link a business portal and follow the instructions on the page. Link a business can be done anywhere there is access to the internet.
  3. Development of a Functional and Technically Sound Collateral Registry
    1. The Electronic Collateral Registry is now a fully developed and functional registry that runs on the government’s service single sign-on platform of e-Citizen. To date, the registry has over 20,000 Initial Notices which have been lodged by various lenders with secured credit amounts running into billions of shillings. This is a positive indicator of improving access to credit in the economy which in turn improves the ease of doing business.
    2. BRS has made concerted efforts to reach out to the key stakeholders in the MPSR ecosystem, primarily the Kenya Bankers Association, the Law Society of Kenya, Leasing Association of Kenya, the Institute of Certified Public Secretaries and as well the formal and informal lenders to micro and small enterprises. In line with this, BRS has conducted five well-attended sensitization and training workshops.
    3. BRS conducted individualized training on the use of the electronic registry to specific banks that have made requests and are keen to come on board. Some of these are Barclays Bank of Kenya, Standard Chartered Bank, Equity Bank, Commercial Bank of Africa, NIC Bank and Diamond Trust Bank. BRS continues to conduct these individualized training on request. It has also developed an MPSR user manual and conveyed the same to the Stakeholders.

 



Our Stakeholders