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{
    "id": 1242219,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1242219/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 909,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "It must also trickle down to the farmers. We must make sure we protect our farmers, but we can only do so, if we promote the production of cotton and the formalization of cotton growing. Madam Temporary Speaker, I also hope that this Bill does not take us back to the Produce Marketing Board era. That was a strategy that went alongside import substitution policies. They have been discredited in many instances. That is the reason why, when President Mwai Kibaki took over power, he came up with the strategy of revitalization of agriculture. That led to the amalgamation of all the different boards that had been established. We set up one super Board called the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA). Today, before this House, there are some proposals to break down AFA because it has failed in its mandate. However, AFA did not fail because the managers there did not do a good job. It failed because the Ministers of Agriculture were always fighting with it. From the time AFA was established, the Ministers of Agriculture thought it had more powers than their Ministries. Therefore, they have done all they can to bring the powers given to AFA back to the Ministry. It is the same conversation we are hearing today. Madam Temporary Speaker, that someone can go to church, give a fat offering and pronounce that he is taking away the power in certain areas of the National Land Commission (NLC) and donating it back to the Ministry. The NLC is a constitutional body whose powers are derived from the Constitution. That is what happened to AFA. The Ministry and the mandarins in the national Executive did not want AFA to succeed. As a result of that, we hived off fisheries and tea. I think we have hived off crops and are now hiving off livestock and cotton. If we are going to produce or come up with a cotton marketing board in order to promote the product from this industry, is it not another unnecessary duplication that will be a strain on the taxes and resources of this country? Madam Temporary Speaker, as I finish, in this country, you do not need to raise or increase taxes. All you need to do are three things; cut down on wastage, reduce the Government expenditure and invest in productive sectors such as cotton, fishing and livestock industries. There will be so much money that even if people were paying a tax rate of 2 per cent, there will be enough to run the Government."
}