Kenya plans to put in place reforms in order to boost the business climate to help spur investments, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
Industrialisation, Trade and Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed told a media briefing in Nairobi that a number of substantive changes in the regulatory framework have been earmarked to improve the level of investments in the country.
“The reforms will reduce regulatory compliance burden for businesses by reducing the number of processes and the cost to access critical government services,” Mohamed said.
“We will also make it easier for individuals and businesses to pay their taxes through the iTax online platform,” he added.
The announcement comes one day after the World Bank released its Doing Business 2018 Report which placed Kenya at position 80 out of 190 countries globally, an improvement from last year’s 92. In Africa, it took third position.
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Mohamed said that Kenya’s business reforms will continue to gather steam because it is through thriving businesses that the country will be able to create job opportunities and to generate wealth for its citizens.
The ministry of industry has already boosted the ease of starting a business by merging requisite formal procedures.
The cabinet secretary noted that the government is enhancing electricity reliability through investment in distribution infrastructure and the establishment of power restoration response teams in the case of outages.
In order to increase the level of efficiency for businesses, Mohamed noted, there will be prioritisation of the reduction of the time required to file documents for importing and exporting goods and services.
