Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1263101,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1263101/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 250,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I withdraw and apologise. I never said that. Sen. Sifuna, you know that you are a fine gentleman. Let us go to the Bill. Regarding responsibilities of the national and county Governments, the proposed Clause 4 of this Bill, sub-clause (k) talks about initiating financing schemes for growers to enable access to affordable funding for farmers. You will never hear farmers in Tana River being given credit and loans. In fact, when you go down to the entire Coast region, one of the things that is there is the coconut that cannot grow anywhere. When I was in the “lower House”, I brought a Bill and the Government at that time had resigned from Government. I remember very well the hon. Sally Kosgei was the Minister for Agriculture and the Bill went past Second Reading and she came to me and told me: “You know, we want to put all the nuts and oil producing plants in one Bill so that we can have a big organization that takes care of everyone.” I was convinced that she meant well, but when it was subsumed there, that whole thing died. I had asked from the then President, to set up a coconut board and it was there. President Kibaki set up that board. It served for a while, but then because it was a presidential order, it was going to lapse. We decided to put a Bill to it. Even the holders of Government offices do not take these economic areas of growth for other regions seriously. That Coconut Bill just went. This Mung Bill must be supported. I am praying that all the Senators in this country should support this Bill. We must start to be deliberate about growing the economies of other areas. We must start being deliberate about Government financing of these areas so that they can grow. Imagine mung bean growers in Tana River and Kitui County and that whole belt had taken loans of about Kshs500 million. For whatever reason they are having problems repaying and then the president says, “We are writing off Kshs500 million with the taxpayer’s money”. Imagine what that will do to our people. Now, this has been normal for coffee and tea growing areas, but we have never benefited. This inequality in growth must end. This Bill starts to address those issues. Paragraph 1 of this Bill, says – “It will promote access to international mung bean markets and for this purpose, collaborate with respective County Executive Committee Members"
}