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{
    "id": 1003621,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1003621/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 44,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to also weigh in on a very important subject raised by my colleague, Sen. (Dr.) Ochillo-Ayacko. We all know that there are about 12 cash-crops in this country ranging from tea, flowers, wheat, cotton, maize, bananas, coffee, pyrethrum and sugarcane. When these crops do not find a convenient way of farmers being paid, there is tremendous loss in the input of farmers because these are small scale holders who have taken everything that they have from their shamba or garden or from small rural plots to the sugar factories. As a result of inefficiencies in the sugar factories, farmers get stranded and they have nothing to get out of the factories. Secondly, one of the other areas is that the workers within the sugar factory itself are also not paid their salaries or statutory deductions and other allowances that go along with it. Consequently, the factory grinds to a halt causing an economic collapse in that region. There are only regions where you can only grow sugarcane and there are not many other regions within the country of Kenya. Madam Deputy Speaker, it is, therefore, important to get down to the bottom of all these things. Like Sen. Wetangula said, some of these factories had been supported, economically lifted by the Government at least from 2007 to 2013. The Grand Coalition Government gave them a very big boost. I do not know what happened again that they have not been able to stand to the interest of the farmer, particularly, the small-scale farmer. Therefore, I support this Statement and we should now look how these companies operate. The chief executives who may not be equal to the task should be taken to task."
}