MSEA mulls 5m traders by next year
By People.Reporter, November 16, 2021Micro and Small Enterprise Authority (MSEA) targets to register five million businesses by end of next year.
It follows the launch of an integrated online SME platform that seeks to provide a database for businesses operating in Kenya.
The authority partnered with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to develop a comprehensive database for micro and small enterprises (MSE) coupled with a central reference point for information dissemination for business growth.
Registration
“MSEA has so far registered 500 associations with 12,500 business people having responded to our calls. Because of the numbers in the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. We expect that in the medium term we are going to hit 15 million small businesses across the country regardless of the size or the sector,” Ridhaa said.
The CEO said most MSEs operating in Kenya are informal and unregistered and barely benefit from various initiatives meant to grow the sector.
Lack of proper documentation has however been cited as a key hindrance to the slow growth due to inability to conduct business with government and the private sector.
“We are trying to consolidate all the support for small businesses in one office such that business will be able to access certificates and tenders through the issued certificates,” he said.
MSEA says the new platform is linked with the Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS) and will soon be integrated together with Business Registration Service (BRS).
According to Walid Badawi the Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kenya, the economy is characterised by informality with 84 per cent of the employment, being largely informal.
“We are doing the formalisation to increase the potential of these mapped Micro and Small Enterprises and to see how we can link them more readily to the medium and larger enterprises and service providers to create that integration in the value chain. That is not possible if we do not have an effective registration system,” said Badawi.
Last year over 14.5 million informal jobs were created from the informal sector contributing to 33.5 per cent of Kenya GDP.
Ridhaa downplayed the narrative that registration means more taxation for businesses, saying the exercise is to enable government manage and plan appropriately for the SMEs.
According to data from the business registry 73,302 businesses have been registered.