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{
"id": 1279547,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1279547/?format=api",
"text_counter": 604,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Seme, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) James Nyikal",
"speaker": null,
"content": "sugarcane farmers are poor. They cannot take their kids to school or treat themselves when sick. Yet, they have capacity because sugarcane farming is an excellent product for development. If you looked at the areas that produced sugarcane, like Mumias, Muhoroni, Miwani, and Sony, they flourished and had infrastructure, good roads, hospitals, and some of the best schools. What is happening now? All that is gone. They had markets, and if you went to Mumias in a place like Shibale, it was flourishing, and even in Miwani, markets were flourishing. All that has now died, and that area has unemployment and poverty. This resulted from changing the law and the liberalisation it brought. In my view, the barons took advantage of this and literary killed the industry to import at a higher profit for themselves. They killed the out-grower cooperatives, and I remember having a friend there. They generated terrible wars and came up with ideas like outsourcing transport. My brother, who follows me, died in Mumias because of corruption in the sugarcane sector, where people would record higher tonnage than what they brought. They used to call him a wizard because when he was on duty, the production of sugar per tonne was very high, and people asked why. The reason was simple. They were bringing 50 tonnes and recording as 200 tonnes. So literary, the production per tonne was terrible, so they ran over him with a tractor. That is the level of corruption we had at that time. Therefore, it is extremely important we go back and have regulations to revive and protect the industry. Look at what is happening now. We have stopped crushing because we do not have sugarcane. I can tell you what will happen. The barons will import a lot of sugar, and when we have sugarcane, we will have nowhere to sell, and they will do that purposefully. The crisis affected the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury because of sugar importation. They came up with the idea that there would be drought and, therefore, we need sugar. So, they were given a little leeway and quickly imported more than ten years’ worth of sugar and blocked everybody out. They could not even store it. The story is still going on about the contamination of sugar. So, we have to regulate this, and that is why I support this Bill because it has all the structures we need. The Sugar Board members are stakeholders - the farmers. They will see things differently because they are representatives of various areas. They know this is their own and will not sit as an employee. On the licensing and registration of millers and jaggeries, we cannot have anybody walking in and saying they are millers or jaggeries. How do we manage that? The Bill provides for this and also research. You know we are still dealing with sugarcane which we harvest after 18 months. Many places in the world now have sugarcane harvested within a year. We need crop inspectors so that once we have the correct cane and train farmers on what to do, we will have what we need. The Bill has established a tribunal. There are many disputes in the sugar industry. Therefore, we need that tribunal… We have a development fund to support farmers. The farmers themselves regulate ownership of factories. The Bill lays down ways for coming up with agreements. Lastly, we must classify sugarcane as food because that will take us long. I support the Bill."
}