The World Bank recently published the Ease of Doing Business report which shows that Kenya has made significant strides in improving the business environment. According to trading economics, Kenya has eased its way up the doing business rankings form a low of 129 in 2014 to its highest ranking of 61 announced in the latest Doing Business report according to World Bank.
The score puts the country third in Africa behind Mauritius and Rwanda. Among the reasons for the recent improvements include the country’s move to implement an online land information management system which has simplified the process and time involved in land transfer and clearing land rates.
The innovation has made registering property easier by introducing an online system which expedites the processing of land documents.
However, the report still ranks Kenya at position 122 with regard to registering property, double the country’s overall ranking in the ease of doing business. This is due to the several procedures and time still involved to complete the process, which saw the country score just 55.97 points out of 100, for registering property.
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The country still has 9 procedures involved in registering property, which take 49 days in comparison to the leading countries where it takes a day or less. In addition, according to the report, the cost of registering a property in the country stands at 6 per cent of property value while it costs nothing to register property in some countries.
According to the World Banks Doing Business, the methodology involves recording ‘the full sequence of procedures necessary for a business (the buyer) to purchase a property from another business (the seller) and to transfer the property title to the buyer’s name so that the buyer can use the property for expanding its business, use the property as collateral in taking new loans or, if necessary, sell the property to another business. It also measures the time and cost to complete each of these procedures.’
The country also ranked 128 in dealing with construction permits. The Ease of Doing Business report survey, compares business regulation for domestic firms in 190 economies.
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