Many thanks Josiah, First congratulations for the 5th edition of Pivot East Africa and for the good work you are doing, just following the discussion on the Global Entrepreneurship Summit i feel proud of how far the local tech sector has come and the role communities such as skunkworks of which you are among the founder members and the i-hub have done. Back to the discussion your intervention is timely, there is need for a Consumer Protection act and i am aware COFEK has been working on a draft bill, they are on this list and we hope they will be able to provide highlights on the stage at which the bill is in. Best Regards On 7/23/15, Josiah Mugambi <jmugambi@gmail.com> wrote:

Wading in one day late on this particular discussion topic, but for good reason.

Yesterday we held the 5th edition of Pivot East <http://www.pivoteast.com>, a regional pitching competition for digital startup companies from East Africa. Digital entrepreneurs as one might imagine are those that run mobile and web based or enabled businesses, and are a core part of the internet economy. Not surprisingly, on average, the most accomplished companies were in the financial sector. This is a sector where policy tends to lag behind innovation (think MPESA, crypto currencies and the burgeoning young companies beginning to play in that space across Africa). One key question that was asked multiple times by the judges, majority of whom were investors, was related to consumer protection and legislation for some of these services.

I would say that we don't have a strong enough legal framework the governs some of these new frontiers. However, there must be a healthy tension between the need to protect consumers from unscrupulous business people while encouraging innovative uses of technology. With regards to taxing the internet economy, don't we have corporate taxes that apply across the board? I don't think it is big enough either especially as many of these bigger players are already paying taxes as it stands. On stuff like cloud services, we need to be wary of double taxation as many services particularly from the US are already taxed.

-- Josiah Mugambi

On Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 3:55 PM, fredrick Wahome via Security < security@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:

...

Unfortunately those in the leadership will just draft something when it deems appropriate time for them without involving the stakeholders n end users.

The document will just sit at CA shelves and life goes on. For now am concentrating on educating users how to be safe. On Jul 22, 2015 11:46 AM, "Grace Mutung'u (Bomu) via Security" < security@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:

...

Hi Barrack, Thank you for the the questions. @ Fred on the issue of taxation for the Internet economy....

I was listening to a representative from Jumia the other day on radio. By her presentation, the volume of merchandise moved per day is quite high and this business is really catching on in Kenya. If I remember they had an increase of 900%in turnover in Africa. While they warn that the high sales have not yet translated into profit, the whole business model is interesting and at some point the government will want a share of the profits. The same will happen to the cloud economy and other Internet businesses, if what happened in Chicago is anything to go by.

However, more needs to be done on consumer education and protection. For example, when one buys a phone online and it is faulty, should the online company collect, repair or replace the phone or should the consumer take the phone to the service centre? Consumer protection can either be done through self regulation where the online companies make very good policies on dealing with consumer complaints. Otherwise , the companies cannot be responsive, then the law/its enforcement must be strengthened.

Regards,

2015-07-22 7:42 GMT+03:00 Barrack Otieno via kictanet < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>:

...

Listers,

The rise of the Internet economy in Kenya has been defined by different strokes. On one hand there are small entrepreneurs doing their side hustles from offices, small shops and car boots. They advertise their merchandise and services on social media and in a rudimentary form, some deliver merchandise in backpacks from door to door. Enter the bigger players who have large websites from where goods and services are purchased. Their business models differ. We have companies like OLX, Cheki that provide a platform for users to interact. They make their money from advertising. Others such as Rupu and Jumia offer services and merchandise at reduced prices.

Questions

1. Does an adequate legal framework exist to protect consumers from fraud, deficient goods and services and to assure consumer rights in the budding Internet economy? 2. Since the bigger players in the sector are doing well, is time ripe for the local Internet economy to be taxed to raise money for government services? 3. Should other services in the Internet economy such as cloud services, international online purchases etc be taxed? 4. As a stakeholder , what are your recommendations on how the Internet economy can be improved?

The floor is open, feel free to continue contributing to the discussions of the previous days.

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