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{
    "id": 1088320,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1088320/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 209,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof.) Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": "places. Even the small little plot I have in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County I see at the riverbed the coffee building and cleaning facilities which were there and the coffee just disappear like that. Madam Temporary Speaker, coffee is such a precious commodity and it has a very high value. Sen. Ndwiga has testified today that he smiled to the bank recently when this reorganization came. When we started talking about this coffee and the cartels who had completely taken over, they did not leave any room for anybody to come in. If you came in, even if you were a grower, you were treated as an intruder. It is because of this noise and the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries which took action and started speaking loudly. Those of us who were the supporters of the Committee from coffee growing areas, we made our noise known. You began to see some level of sanity creeping in. That is why they are fetching the better prices. This is analogous to the tea situation. Madam Temporary Speaker, recently when we started making noise and we had an Act of Parliament here, I have seen Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) in very frantic manner trying to reorganize the assets. I even saw some of the dividends being paid from non-tea earnings. In other words, the investments they had made in non-tea assets, they are now paying dividends which we never used to get before. This Bill is seeking to rationalize to control the cartels that have been both the managers of the coffee industry. They have been the marketers and the ones who are collaborating with international buyers. They are one and the same thing. If you check the buyers here and in London, Germany, Egypt or in other places, you will find it is the same group of people who are all over the place. Therefore, the poor little scale holder farmer was held captive of these cartels and they were unable to move. Madam Temporary Speaker, that is why we started seeing the coffee industry sinking. Similarly, pyrethrum sunk under the same element. I do not know where we got this AFA animal from. It has completely messed up the agricultural industry and more so, having regard to the fact that agriculture is a devolved function. Therefore, there was no order on handling individual crops, particularly coffee, pyrethrum, sugar and tea. This has become a menace to a farmer in this country."
}