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{
    "id": 1086893,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1086893/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 467,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "and selling in the name of Sukari Industries and yet, the sugar-cane farmers have their cane in the farms. No one attends to those things. The best they can do is to go to another county. They go to Kisumu to buy cane and yet, there are cane farmers in Ndhiwa. The farmers have their cane in the farms and cannot be harvested. When you go to the surrounding constituencies like Uriri, the story is the same. So, I think I will bring a request for statement to this House to ask the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock to investigate that factory to ensure they must first of all harvest local sugar-cane grown in Ndhiwa, Uriri and the surrounding constituencies, before they import sugar and go elsewhere to get the cane. That is why we accepted that factory to be set up there. We wanted to create job opportunities for our people. How will you create job opportunities when they are just importing sugar and re-packaging it? You do not need much manpower to do that. If they were cutting the cane from local farms, they would first be creating job opportunities for those farmers who are growing sugar-cane and also creating job opportunities for crushing the cane and many other services that go with it. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the issue of sugar privatisation also needs to be addressed. I agree that farmers need to be represented. Maybe, farmers need to buy 51 per cent as proposed in the Bill. Again, if we had an efficient and functioning private sector that would invest without corruption, there would be no problem even if those factories were owned by private individuals. What sugar-cane farmers need is just a factory to crush their cane and give them competitive pricing. It is because we are not sure that we are insisting that we need the sugar-cane farmers to have a higher stake in those factories when they are sold. I want to conclude my contribution by saying that the Board has its work cut out. The moment this Bill is passed - and I hope the President will assent to it speedily - we need to implement and operationalise the law. It is because we have also created many other boards which are not doing their best. Remember, there is the Fish Marketing Board. Up to now, it is a shame. It is dead. The Government has deliberately refused to operationalise the functions of that Board up to now. I hope - and it is my belief - that this time we are going to put pressure on the Government to make sure the moment this law is passed and enacted, it is operationalised immediately so that the benefits that this law would bring to our farmers are realised immediately. Our farmers need people who can intervene for them. The people who can intervene for them are their representatives. Again, I thank Hon. Wamunyinyi. Hon. Wamunyinyi, you will go on record as having participated and helped in the revival of the sugar industry. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support."
}