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{
    "id": 629921,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/629921/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 280,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Motion that she brought to this House. Now, we are looking at an Amendment Bill which she brought. Also, the work which was done by the Select Committee on Prisons and Borstal Institutions was her creation. For us to celebrate the women, we must celebrate Sen. Kittony. This is a straightforward Bill that I support. The National Cereals and Produce Board was established before the birth of devolution. Therefore, its functions have not been realigned to the consistency of the Constitution. The NCPB has been trading in agricultural produce and grain related services. Besides this, the NCBP has also been involved in importation and sale of farm inputs. A much more strategic role that it has been doing has been the management of the country’s Strategic Grain Reserve and the famine relief stock. Most of these functions with the exception of the grain reserve and famine relief stock should be under the county governments. The national food security is a duty of the national Government. I believe that most of it can be done at the county level. I understand that the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) has been coming up with some recommendations on its restructuring so that it can be more efficient, effective and aligned to the new Constitution. This amendment Bill is proactive and forward looking because we do not have to wait for parastatals to come up with restructuring papers before we undertake any action. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, with these amendments, I expect and look forward to a situation where counties, once they set up county cereals and produce committees that have been proposed here, will take charge of issues of grain produce, marketing and storage within their respective domains. One of the things that I would expect to see is that unlike the current situation where the NCPB sets one price whenever they buy grains for the strategic grain reserve, they should get to a situation where different counties will set different prices in response to market forces. It has been noted that the price set by the NCPB is not competitive. Therefore, you will either find farmers complaining that the price set is too low or millers complaining that the price set is too high. The net effect is that the millers increase the price of flour. As you know, this is an ugali nation. Every time the price of flour increases, you would expect that inflation would also rise. I hope that the county cereals and produce committees will drive the thinking that will see to it that our farmers get competitive prices for their maize. They should set prices that are competitive enough to give the farmers a decent return and allow the millers to bring flour and ugali to our tables without necessarily increasing the prices. I also expect that setting up these committees at the county level will allow our counties to stock on a need basis. I, initially, stated that for the strategic grain reserve and the famine relief stock I would still expect that the NCPB or the national Government will still look for a body or an agency that will undertake that for purposes of food security. However, we must also look at food security within the counties. I hope that with these amendments, our counties will stock on the basis of need. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the NCPB has also been managing fertiliser subsidy on behalf of the national Government. This is an area which has resulted in a lot of complaints from farmers. When we met the Cabinet Secretary (CS) in charge of The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes"
}