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"id": 1398591,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wakili Sigei",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Sen. Mundigi, kindly and I am giving you the last warning, apologize and withdraw or else I will rule you out of order."
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"id": 1398592,
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"speaker": null,
"content": "(Sen. Munyi Mundigi spoke off record)"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wakili Sigei",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Sen. Mundigi, for the last time, apologize and withdraw."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Munyi Mundigi",
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"speaker": null,
"content": "Bw. Spika wa Muda, ninaomba msamaha na kuondoa. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wakili Sigei",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Proceed, Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale."
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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. If there is one thing that this House should do is to pass this Bill. Even if there are a million amendments that are supposed to be there, this Bill is an admission of how Parliament can fail. In 2013, somebody came with a Bill in this House canvassing for the establishment of the Agricultural and Food Authority (AFA), which passed but it killed the sugar industry. I agree with many Members, especially with the views of the Senator of Vihiga County, who appears to appreciate the meaning of this Bill. That there are gaps but for starters, let us pass this Bill because we are re-establishing the Kenya Sugar Board. Once you re-establish the Kenya Sugar Board, that is the beginning of recovery. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I know you were not there. You were busy in your law firm at that time or probably at the University of Nairobi. What happened is that some tomcats, Treasury mandarins, started salivating for the money in the accounts of the Kenya Sugar Board. They looked at the Kenya Sugar Board and found billions of shillings, but the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK) account was negative together with others. They wanted to sweep the money, which they did and then disappeared. In the process, they crippled the livelihood of 25 per cent of Kenya’s population that depends on this industry. Arithmetically, that converts at the current population of 55 million Kenyans to 14 million Kenyans, who were adversely affected. Together with that, 250,000 small-scale farmers were shortchanged. The amount of poverty this has visited in the Sugar belt cannot be described. The once vibrant economy in Shibale market in Mumias has closed down. Kakunga market in Mumias has closed down. In Navakholo the markets have also closed down. Mumias Town itself is the same, just because of the failure of this Parliament. Parliament should never fail. Therefore, I appeal to colleagues to listen carefully to the contributions from Senators from the sugar belt. These are 12 counties starting from Kwale up to the border with Uganda. I thank the Committee through its Chair for coming to Kakamega County. I want to urge the Senator of Nandi, who is my neighbor, to use kind words to this Committee. They did an excellent job. I saw them, and was in their meeting. They never lobbied me. However, because sugarcane farming is very important, I was interested. They did not even have enough money to go to five or seven star hotels outside Kakamega County, but they lived on. I am proud of this Committee. This Bill in its First Schedule speaks to the sticking issue of zoning, which is a very pregnant issue. It is a hot brick and if not managed properly, it can be abused. Therefore, I want to support them that we go by the proposals of the taskforce. However, during the third stage, I would like to appeal to the Chair to adopt some of our proposals, so that they become the proposals for amendment by the Chair to give it the weight that it would deserve for us to polish it even further. If you do not do it very well, zoning which is supposed to kill poaching of cane, can also enslave the farmers in that zone, in the sense that you will be coerced through legislation to deliver your cane to a factory in your zone, whether it pays you well or not, timeously or not, or whether it harvest on time or not. This is why I say we polish it. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398597,
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"text_counter": 247,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"content": "The issue of zoning should also be polished further, so that the issue of weighbridges can be addressed. We must make it an offence punishable under this Bill for any miller to set up a weighbridge in a zone that the miller does not belong to. If you go to Western, you will find wide load, long trucks that can carry harvested cane from end to end. We want to polish this law. Mr. Chairman, I appeal to you, so that should this miller choose to haul cane for long distances, then they should incur a penalty as they cross from county to another. The issue of poaching of cane from foreign zones is the reason I would like to support this Bill. It says that no single miller should enjoy monopoly, where his investment is more than 30 per cent of the total cane harvested in this country. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is because of the greed of setting up many factories that you find that these people end up poaching cane from end to end. For purposes of enforcement, the police under this Bill, must be authorized to arrest poachers of cane. Those of us who come from the heartland of cane production, for example, Kakamega, Kisumu and Bungoma Counties know what we are talking about. For the longest time Busia has been part of Kakamega County. When I say it, I do so as a big brother. This law has to speak to harvesting of cane. The reason you heard the Senator of Vihiga speak to the issue of the temporary closure of factories that was there last year is because these poachers were engaged in harvesting of premature cane. Under this Bill, we must make sure that harvesting of premature cane is criminalized. In this Bill, we are speaking to cane pricing. The proposal in this Bill states that it should be done every three months. You cannot do that. Pricing must be reviewed every month because sugar fluctuates on the national, regional, continental, in Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the international market. Reviews should be regular, so that we do not lose out. Personally, I know what I am talking about. I am a farmer in Malinya. I grow cane in Kakamega County and supply it to Butali Sugar Mills and West Kenya Sugar Company. It is annoying when one week you supply and because there are no reviews, the following week you see cane is attracting better price. I plead with the Chairperson of the Committee to consider reducing it from three months to one month. There is an animal in this country under the total and absolute control of the National Treasury called the importation of sugar. Whereas it is a necessity, on the other hand, it is killing our farmers. How? The National Treasury declares an imaginary hypothetical sugar deficit. Cheap imported sugar hits the market and denies local farmers an opportunity to enjoy a better price. I encourage the Committee, at Third Reading, to discourage this reckless behaviour. We must tie down the National Treasury in this manner; that anytime a declaration of a deficit is made and the market for imported sugar is opened, the local farmers must also enjoy and benefit from importation. How? If 100 per cent of imported sugar can be allowed into the market and 50 per cent is allowed for private players, the remaining 50 per cent is given to the Outgrower institutions – Mumias Outgrowers Company (MOCO), Butali Outgrowers Company (BOCO), West Kenya Outgrower Company, Nzoia Outgrower Company and Sony Sugar Outgrower Company. The bottom line is that the benefit of importation will be enjoyed by the The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398598,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398598/?format=api",
"text_counter": 248,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"content": "private players and the local producers, so that there is shared prosperity as envisioned in the letter and spirit of the Constitution of Kenya 2010. In this Bill and I will be specific, we are speaking to the issue of cess. A Member spoke to this issue and took it lightly. He thought money was being taken to Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA). The Member said it was being given to Members of Parliament. This is not true. In this Bill, the money being taken to KeRRA is for the development of roads in the catchment area, which is exactly what the cess is supposed to do. The Bill is well drafted to that extent. It is not by accident that the Mover of this Bill in the National Assembly is the Hon. Member of Parliament for Navakholo in Kakamega County. In this House, it is the distinguished Senator for Bungoma County. It is because we are the ones wearing that shoe, and we know where it pinches. If we fix our sugar industry in Kakamega County, our Own-Source Revenue will triple. Mumias Sugar Company has a potential turnover of Kshs24 billion. Butali Sugar Company has turnover of Kshs10 billion. West Kenya Sugar Company has turnover of Kshs14 billion. With this kind of turnover, automatically, our Own-Source Revenue will shoot up. This was the original intention of devolution; that we open up economies of counties, so that they can grow their Own-Source Revenue. I was at an investment conference in Kakamega last week. I looked at it and said that it would be difficult with the quality of thinking to unlock economies. Nothing was inspiring about the sugar industry, yet it is the backbone of Kakamega. Allow me to speak to the following clauses. I can see my time flying away. I will not speak to many clauses. Clause 38 is on a sugar development levy. The Chairperson to the Committee, please, look at this Clause. You cannot succeed in the sugar industry without the farmer and the miller. Therefore, when you share out the money for the sugar development levy in Clause 38(6)(a), instead of giving 15 per cent to the millers and five per cent to the farmers, you must balance it, so that the miller gets 10 per cent and the farmer gets 10 per cent. It is a symbiotic relationship. If the farmer gets discouraged, the miller cannot have raw material. If the miller gets discouraged, the farmer will lack a market. Let us give it the seriousness it deserves. The penultimate Clause I want to speak to is Clause 58 on pricing. Clause 58 (3) (c) states that- “The main objective of the committee shall be to ensure adherence to the negotiated cane processing formula.” This is the backbone of what I was talking about on shared prosperity. If you do not adhere to it and allow the investors to have a big say because they have the money to influence meetings, then farmers end up being shortchanged. Finally, Clause 59 speaks to the representation of a grower in the private milling company. Sen. Osotsi missed it by a kilometer. The reason members are allowed to sit as directors is because left on its own, he would shortchange us. It is like taking your goat to the market in Lubao and asking the person who will slaughter the goat to decide the price of the goat without reference to the owner of the goat. Sen. Osotsi, why we need the owner of the goat who is the sugarcane farmer in this case to also speak in the Lubao Market is because if he keeps quiet, his goat worth Kshs12,000 can be sold for as little as The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
},
{
"id": 1398599,
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"text_counter": 249,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"content": "Kshs2,000. Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, I congratulate you for doing a good job in Clause 59 of the Bill. Finally, but not least, I thank the new investor in Mumias Sugar Company. He has changed the ecosystem. Shame on criminals who are starting to burn the nucleus canes. We know the criminals and we will go after them. Mumias Sugar Company will never close. I thank you and support the Bill."
},
{
"id": 1398600,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1398600/?format=api",
"text_counter": 250,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wakili Sigei",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " The Hon. Sen. Okiya Omtatah, proceed."
}
]
}