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{
    "id": 1156226,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1156226/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 133,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Secondly and most importantly, force these private players to invest locally in cane growing and to also ensure that the nucleus is within their jurisdiction. Every time you apply for a milling licence, you are asked to attach the names of the farmers who will be supplying cane to your factory. Yet once you have got the licence, there is no requirement to ensure those farmers live in conditions where they can continue to supply cane. In those factories, you see steam coming out once in seven days a week, but we do not know what they do for the rest of six days? They repackage raw sugar from other countries. Madam Temporary Speaker, what is it that other countries do that we cannot do here locally? I am happy that I have seen some of the proposals that are part of this Bill. If we are to strictly observe and follow them through, it can help us achieve many industry standards that allow other countries to thrive. Madam Temporary Speaker, I endorse this Bill. I am happy with the introduction of the Kenya Sugar Board. This used to exist back in the day. We all remember what happened with Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Authority (AFFA). We did our work in the tea sector, but unanimously across the country, farmers told us they preferred each crop being handled individually. I know a bit of history about this Bill. When people had problems with us when we were removing tea from being part of AFFA as a wholesome unit, we asked them what the problem was. I remember having a conversation with one of the Members of the National Assembly from Western Kenya who had serious complaints with what we were doing with the tea sector. I challenged him to do the same for sugar because I understood the issues were the same. The whole conceptualization of AFFA was grave mistake. As you read through the body, you will see that for every body corporate that they are creating, they need experts of a certain industry. This is the question I asked and posed before this House when I was urging my colleagues to support us in the Tea Bill. Where is it that you are going to get these extra talented, gifted, knowledgeable and so sagacious Kenyans who will have knowledge on tea, coffee, cotton and others so that you put them in the Board of AFFA in order to give strategic directions? I do not think such people exist. This Bill is proposing that we revert back to Kenya Sugar Board. This makes a lot of sense to me. I endorse and agree to many of the provisions that are being made about it on the powers that this institution shall have. I hope it shall not be another bottleneck as millers try to set up their mills. I hope it will protect the sector and ensure that they group farmers together to form a communal nucleus so that they can observe many of the standards that are required and so that the yield per acre can be similar across the region. Madam Temporary Speaker, the amount of money that private millers make per acre out of their nucleus and the amount which our farmers make in small scale farms has a huge disparity. This is not for any other reason, but because of good and modern agricultural practices which many of our farmers are not able to observe. Those will be the functions and directions that the Sugar Board needs to place as a demand on the millers."
}