Committee on Trade, Co-operatives, and Industries chairman Kieni Member of Parliament, Kanini Kega.
[PHOTO/kenyanlife.com]
The National Assembly is preparing pieces of legislation to facilitate recovery of lost investments by local suppliers in the event big retailers such as supermarkets collapse.
At the same time, some of the legislation being spearheaded by the Committee on Trade, Co-operatives, and Industries are aimed at protecting the local textile industry from cheap imports.
The committee’s new chairman and Kieni Member of Parliament, Kanini Kega says the National Assembly will also debate a Bill seeking to enhance value addition. This is meant to increase the country’s competitiveness in international markets.
The MP decried the losses suppliers incur when superstores fold. Several Supermarkets have recently faced financial management turbulence, leaving staff and suppliers stranded.
“We are also keen on a Bill that will establish an institution similar to the Central Bank, where prompt payments are triggered to cushion suppliers losing their money in goods supplied to these ill-fated retailers,” Kega said.
In 2015, Kenya’s leading supermarket chains were entangled in a multi-billion shilling debt row with suppliers who accused them of refusing to pay for goods delivered to their stores.
Manufacturers said the retailers owe them at least Sh8 billion an amount Kenya Association of Manufacturers said had put some of its members at risk of going bust.
In September last year, a government report listed Uchumi Supermarket's third with a debt of Sh123 million among the retailers that owe suppliers.
Parliament has also noted that the country has for years lost billions of shillings in goods destined for export besides the cheap imports that flood the local market. “The Bills are at their formative stages. We need to cushion suppliers and producers from unfair trade activities,” he said while addressing some 46 exhibitors of apparels, textiles and their accessories in Nairobi.
The Bills, he said will trigger prompt payment of goods purchased by retailers before they collapse through self-regulation.