Proposed Law to affect you...both tenant & Landlord
9 August 2021
Good morning,
Did you know that Mombasa leads in mobile internet speed in Kenya?
Proposed law makes it illegal to auction tenants’ property without a court order
One thing is crystal clear. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused massive economic fallout to businesses and individuals.
The economic fallout has lead to rise in rent disputes. Recently, there has been numerous reported cases of brutal evictions and auction of property for non-payment of rent.
However, a new bill in parliament seeks to provide a solution to this matter by requiring landlords to seek a court order before auctioning tenants property.
Highlights of Landlord and Tenant Bill of 2021
Landlords will be required to file a case at the Rent Tribunal and get a ruling before auctioning tenants’ property.
This law would repeal all laws relating to renting (The Distress for Rent Act, Rent Restriction Act, and the Landlord and Tenant (Shops, Hotels and Catering Establishments) Act.
The proposed law establishes a tribunal that will have powers to determine the recovery for payment of rent arrears. The tribunal shall determine matters in a period of not more than 3 months.
Landlords and tenants who fail to comply with rulings of the tribunal face a fine of Sh200,000 or one year in jail or both.
What is the current law on auctioning?
The Business Premises Rent Tribunal (BPRT) and the Rent Restriction Tribunal (RRT) handle disputes between landlords and tenants — shops, hotels and catering establishments.
The Distress for Rent Act empowers landlords to auction rent defaulters after issuing a 14-day notice.
HEALTH
NHIF faces liquidity crisis
When did you last make your NHIF contribution? because the NHIF Chief Executive announced that 54% of NHIF members have defaulted on their monthly contributions.
To put this numbers into perspective, 5.7 million NHIF members out of the 10.6 million members have stopped paying their contributions.
The liquidity crisis has affected the fund’s ability to meet administrative costs and there is danger of whether the fund can fully cater for members healthcare needs.
Good news for artistes, from Safaricom
Ever asked yourself how much a musician earns from Skiza tunes?
Safaricom’s “skiza tune” announced an increase in artistes’ earnings on sales generated from their tunes. The earnings have been increased by a third from the current earnings.
Details of the rise.
The increase was effective as from July 1 this year.
The earnings will apply for music and non-music tunes.
Artistes will now get earnings of 40% from their tunes on the platform
Note: Earlier last month, the State exempted ringtones from excise tax in a bid to increase the amount that local artistes earn from the use of their songs in mobile phone.
Capital Markets
1. Kenya issued licenses to Foreign re-insurance brokers
This move to license foreign re-insurance brokers is aimed to benefit local players in the industry who use foreign brokers to buy re-insurance brokers.
The Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) now requires all reinsurance brokers that have operations in the country to set up a physical office in Kenya and get license from the regulator. (This is by January 2022)
Don’t know what re-insurance is? - Reinsurance, also known as insurance for insurers, is whereby insurers transfer portions of their risk portfolios to other parties to reduce the likelihood of paying a large obligation resulting from a claim.
2. Foreign Investors pulled out Ksh1 Billion from Nairobi stock exchange in July
In July, Foreign Investors bought shares approximately 4.64billion and sold shares worth 5.75 billion.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Genghis Capital senior research analyst confirmed this in the statement below:
“It is also summer on their end, foreign investors tend to slow their activities in July and August. They are likely to come back in full throttle come September.” - Genghis capital.
Africa Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) to procure an order-routing system that will enable cross border trading.
Seven leading African securities Exchanges are working together in the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP) to make cross border trading easier.
The seven exchanges are: Nairobi Securities Exchange, The Egyptian Exchange, Casablanca Stock Exchange, Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres-representing stock exchange for the West African Economic and Monetary Union’s eight West African nations, Johannesburg Stock Exchange Nigerian Exchange and Stock Exchange of Mauritius.
TAX
Tax Evaders to get relief of up to 100% on penalties
The Kenya Revenue Authority has now automated the amnesty program for suspected tax evaders. Taxpayers have been manually applying for the amnesty for the last 7 months and the large number of applicants has slowed down the process.
The automation of the process is expected to lessen the traffic and improve convenience.
The amnesty is a 3-year programme where KRA will offer upto 100% interest and penalties waiver on taxes not been paid in the last five years.
NATIONAL DEBT
Debt Pay Off day: Kenya Resumes debt repayment to China
In January this year, Kenya was given a six-month debt-repayment suspension by China that ended in June. This suspension period enabled Kenya to temporarily retain Ksh 27 billion.
Now, Kenya plans to spend KSh117.7 billion on Chinese debt in the period, of which about KSh24.7 billion is in interest payments and almost KSh93 billion in redemptions.
COVID-19
Kenya approves emergency use of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines
Chief executive officer of the Pharmacy and Poisons Board announced that Kenya has approved the emergency use of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines.
Kenya expects to receive 13 million J&J doses starting this month and expects to vaccinate 10 million people by end of December.
Kenya has already received AstraZeneca vaccine doses which are currently being administered.
POLICE
Statistics on the number of people killed by Police or disappeared in 2021.
A family in Embu last week sought answers from the police after two young brothers died in unclear circumstances. The siblings, Benson Njiru, 22, and Emmanuel Mutura, 19, were arrested for allegedly flouting the 10pm-4am curfew on Sunday.
Their father later found the 2 boys at the Embu Level 5 Hospital morgue. Embu North Sub-County Police Commander, Emily Ngaruiya, claims that the boys died after jumping off a moving police van but the Family and residents in Embu claim that the police are responsible for the death of the two young men.
2021 has seen an increase in the number of police killings. Below is Data from Missing voices on the same.
MUST KNOW ConversationStarters
Following up on the Cytonn case? - Well, the judge referred the court dispute pitting three investors against Cytonn Investments to arbitration.
This is because the contract between Cytonn and the investors had an Arbitration Clause, hence the dispute had to be first settled by arbitration before seeking redress from the courts.
Farmers have bypassed property developers in loan defaults - The pandemic hit hard for most of us but farmers have had it extremely rough. The CBK industry statistics reveal that farmers have marginally passed the construction industry in loan defaults.
Update on travel news? - You might want to check our previous post on the countries where the Kenyan passport faces restrictions. However, here’s a few updates.
Jambo jet will start direct flights to Lamu (4 times week) and Goma, Congo (2 times a week) as from next month.
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority extended suspension of flights to India till August 20th. However, Kenyan citizens and Indians who are resident are allowed to fly in on charter flights subject to 14 day quarantine and proof of a negative covid-19 certificate.
Update on Safaricom’s license in Ethiopia - Safaricom’s telco license in Ethiopia will be upgraded to include mobile money. Safaricom will introduce its popular M-Pesa in the market of 110 million people.
The Capital Markets Authority has directed Cytonn Asset Managers Limited to stop signing-up new clients - This is until it changes the names of its business and its regulated products so as to reduce confusion to the public on which products are regulated and which ones are not regulated.
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