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{
    "id": 1025640,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1025640/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 336,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mutunga",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13495,
        "legal_name": "John Kanyuithia Mutunga",
        "slug": "john-kanyuithia-mutunga"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I would like to support the Report as I also associate myself with the comments made by Hon. Wangwe. We sit in the same Committee and this issue came up during the Budget-making process. I was one of those Members who formed the Commodities Fund. I will state the history of what happened. If all value chains were organised as in coffee and sugar, it is possible for us to form agricultural and even livestock funds. Money is generated from levies. These levies are deductions from the farmers’ supplies to the millers or the factories where coffee is concerned. It would be good if we can recommend that all value chains are involved. All crops should benefit. The idea of calling it a Commodities Fund is not to associate it with just coffee and sugarcane. It is for all commodities. All commodities should be able to access those funds so that they can develop. I do not think we have reached there yet. The Committee can look into that issue because it is for all agricultural commodities under the AFFA. The levies held by AFFA should be progressively released to the Commodities Fund so that it can budget for the year. That is why they were requesting for only Kshs30 million instead of Kshs3 billion to form a Commodities Fund. When levies are kept at AFFA, they do not serve their purpose. The payments that have been done in the past were still reflected at the formative stage. Some of the coffee-related payments and the sugarcane-related payments were already there. We transferred this burden. We indicated that this burden should have been sorted out before the Commodities Fund was managed. Therefore, the Fund should be used to increase acreage where possible and intensify agricultural productivity so that we can generate more revenue. There is insufficient knowledge about this Fund across the country and the farming domain. It is important for sensitisation to take place so that everybody knows the Fund exists. The conditions of access are made very clear. There are two Bills which are trying to expunge some of the commodities under AFFA. As we move in that particular direction which is regrettable, we should not touch the Commodities Fund. We should leave the Commodities Fund to serve all the commodities in the country and not take out any of them. Finally, when it comes to paying off the loans, we need to check which loans can be forgiven and which ones must be paid because some loans are actually payable even at this point in time. I support the Motion."
}