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{
    "id": 1202282,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1202282/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 173,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tetu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Geoffrey Mwangi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker for giving me an opportunity to make my maiden speech on the Floor of this House. First, I want to start by congratulating His Excellency the President and his Deputy for their well-deserved victory. Secondly, I congratulate the Speaker and you Deputy Speaker for your successful election. I wish you Godspeed as you execute your mandate. Allow me to start by thanking, very sincerely, the people of Tetu for bestowing their faith in me as their eighth Member of Parliament, although I believe my constituency holds an absurd or awkward record of never having re-elected any of its Members of Parliament for the last 35 years. I am not blaming them because we have an overabundance of good leaders, which makes our local politics hypercompetitive. This is the constituency that produced Dedan Kimathi, the most celebrated freedom hero; and Noble Prize winner the late Prof. Wangari Maathai, who was also our fourth Member of Parliament. As such, I do not take this mandate lightly. Therefore, I want to promise the people of Tetu from the Floor of this House that I will execute my triple duties of legislation, oversight and representation to the best of my knowledge and ability. My constituency is largely rural and agricultural. Our land holding is, on average, one acre per household. My people practise subsistence farming. We grow tea in the upper part of Tetu neighbouring the Aberdares Forest and we have coffee in the lower areas. We do small-scale dairy farming and we have emerging crops such as macadamia and avocado. When I sought the mandate to represent the people of Tetu, I made certain pledges and promises to them, and when I listened to the President in this House, I was very happy to note that most of the President’s priorities neatly ticks the boxes of the most pressing needs of my constituency. I will start by agricultural productivity. Food insecurity is now a real threat in my constituency. This is because of climate change and also the high cost of input of agricultural products. As such, the move by the President to lower the cost of fertiliser has come as a welcome move. However, you notice that there is no National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) storage facility in my constituency and my people have to spend in upwards of Kshs1000 to travel to Kiganjo, where the nearest NCPB Depot is located. Also, the registration process to access the fertiliser is cumbersome. It is important that going forward we utilise some permanent database of farmers which then will easily be used to allocate the subsidised fertiliser to the farmers. For our cash crops, and in view of the President’s promise to use agriculture to increase incomes, I am hoping that the Motion on guaranteed minimum returns will see the light of the day in this House. I also intend to bring legislation to guide marketing The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}