[kictanet] Day 4 of 10- BPO Discussions, Govt Subsidies

[Catherine Adeya]

Barrack,

The great thing about such a forum is there is no right or wrong answer as long as you are on topic...one need not be a scholar to make a worthwhile contribution. Even some of us...so called scholars sometimes fumble in our responses....I read some of what I wrote yesterday and saw a few errors but hey I wanted to ensure that I was contributing in a timely manner. The long and short of what I am trying to say is your contribution below is well understood and does not require further scholarly elaboration, others will just tease out issues from it and flesh it out if need be. 

I hope this also helps the many listers out there in cyberspace who would like to say something but are feeling slightly overwhelmed by these 'scholars'. Enjoy chatting....KICTANET is your space............


Nyaki




________________________________
From: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack at gmail.com>
To: elizaslider at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Friday, June 5, 2009 9:03:10 AM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 4 of 10- BPO Discussions, Govt Subsidies

Walu, and fellow Listers, i think the clause that requires local investors to on twenty percent might be counter productive for an emerging market such as Kenya at this point in time, i like d Dr Ndemo's suggestion of requiring the companies to list on the stock exchange so that locals can then own a chunk of it, remember Kenya is a "small market" to most multinationals no wonder large companies prefer dealing with clusters MEA and the likes. On another note Barclays Bank had a program where they were taking members of their business club to Hong Kong and the likes, fellow listers we should not underestimate the Value of EXPOSURE, Kenya has a well educated workforce but they just need to be tickled by exposure and you will be surprised at the outcome, could someone help me elaborate on this it may not be scholarly enough !


On 6/5/09, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
-Dear Listers,

I must thank all for your insights over the last few days.  I like the challenge that asked whether we are "over-regulating" an emerging market as the "answer" to the question on if we have legal and regulatory gaps. Listers are encouraged to challenge and not just answer the questions. Other arising issues included where we want to play within the BPO Value Chain, the Impact of the Political (in-)stability, the need to map our Data Protection laws to those in the target markets are just but some of the highlights I picked - and by all means this is NOT exhaustive as am still reading through the contributions.

But today we need to open the theme on Government subsidies. The Researchers found the S.Africa and India had elaborate subsidy provisions for the sector that included Tax Holidays and Exemptions, Investment Grants to BPO operators, Training Subsidies, One-stop shop for Corporate Company Registrations that could be 100% foreign owned, etc. The Researchers noted the unique Mauritius case which had similar incentives but eventually abolished most of them arguing that they were more beneficial to the Operators than to the Nation.

On the Kenyan front - other than the not so succesfull Govt Bandwidth subsidies for Operators, very little in terms of incentives was available to BPO Operators. It was noted that the BPO operators had to be within the EPZ in order to enjoy the subsidies other EPZ corporates operates - the problem being that most BPO operaters exist outside the EPZ area. Whats more, BPO operators had to pay additional charges to be registered by the CCK (Regulator) and should be at least 20% locally owned.

Qtn6:  What incentives / subsidies should the government provide to BPO operators?  What of the clause requiring 20% Local shareholding in foreign companies - is it prohibitive or helpful?

Floor is open comments.

walu.
Encl: Synthesis 2:- Subsidies and Incentives


      
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