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{
    "id": 806463,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/806463/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 203,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Olekina",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 407,
        "legal_name": "Ledama Olekina",
        "slug": "ledama-olekina"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to comment on this important and sensitive matter. We must demystify why we have a problem in this country. If my memory serves me right, during an election period, there are goodies which are normally given out. Last May the Government gave out a window for people to import sugar illegally. One of the companies that imported sugar is called Rai Group, which imported 187,275 metric tonnes of sugar. When they imported this sugar, they stored it in a multiple Container Freight Station (CFS) or holding place, which originally stored clinker; a raw material used to produce cement. We are bringing poison into this country because our agencies have failed. When you import anything into this country, you go through a vigorous process. You issue an Import Declaration Form (IDF) and SGS, which certifies and gives a certificate of conformity that the item being imported into the country is safe. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has failed. If it had carried out due diligence, we will not have exposed Kenyans to the mess we are right now. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am aware of another company called Darasa Investments whose containers or ship was confiscated in the port six months ago and the sugar is still lying there. If we want to fight corruption let us not be selective. Corruption is killing our people. When you store sugar where there is clinker, which is poisonous, you are killing Kenyans. The Government is unable to bail out Mumias Sugar Company. These sugar barons use every avenue to destroy the sugar industry in the country, so that they can import sugar. They collude with people in the National Treasury, KRA or Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). We need to ask hard questions as we interrogate this matter. For example, why is it that Mumias Sugar is collapsing, yet the Government is not willing to relinquish its shareholding? Why not open it to the public or private inventors? Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I support this Statement and hope---"
}