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{
"id": 1282231,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1282231/?format=api",
"text_counter": 277,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, some of us logged in at 1:30 p.m. so that we could get chance to contribute to the Sugar Bill 2022. It would be wrong for me to start contributing to this debate without, first, thanking Hon. Emmanuel Wangwe. If he has ever done some job in this Parliament, this is the job he has come here to do. Thank you, Hon. Wangwe, for ably representing your people and doing the work they have sent you to do here. You have seen how emotive the debate has been this afternoon, and it is for good reasons. Hon. Temporary Speaker, the dominance of sugar, as a commodity, in this country is very recent. Looking at the history of sugar, granulated sugar could have been used in India as early as the 6th Century BC. It was only in the19th century when Europeans were able to bring refined sugar to the market. Thereafter, sugar undertakings have been a bitter story of exploitation, racism, obesity, environmental degradation, displacement of humanity and many other ills. Kenya is not spared. That is why we find ourselves suffering what I would call the “sugar curse.” Out of the 12.5 million Africans who were kidnapped and sold during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, between one-half and two-thirds of them were enslaved in sugar plantations. Sugar itself, as a commodity, has a very sweet and bitter story. We are now caught up in that story as a country. This Bill seeks to provide for the development, regulation and promotion of the sugar industry and provide for the establishment, powers and functions of the Kenya Sugar Board, and for connected purposes. In Clause 23, the Bill seeks to establish the Kenya Sugar Research Institute. If not for any other reason, I support this Bill because Kenya needs to catch up with the rest of the world and even overtake the world in terms of knowledge on the development of sugar. Our sugar industry is too archaic and inefficient that our sugar is not competitive even at the local market, leave alone the regional or international market. The proposed sugar research institute, once established, should be able to tell us why we do not have fast-maturing sugarcane varieties in Kenya, so that sugarcane can be harvested and processed faster. Hon. Temporary Speaker, some Members representing farmers in this country’s sugar belt tell us that they were brought up in 10-acre sugarcane farms but those farms have since been subdivided to the size of handkerchief parcels of land yet we still talk about developing sugar farming. The provisions in this Bill that seek to protect land meant for sugar development must be guarded. Once established, the proposed research institute must tell us how we can grow sugar productively on smaller pieces of land. In the interest of time I will not prosecute this matter any further but rather proceed to Part IV of the Bill, and specifically Clause 29, which says that the Board may appoint qualified persons to be called “crop inspectors” for the purposes of this Act. During the Committee of the whole House, I will seek to amend this provision so that instead of reading “may” it will read “shall” because the sugar inspector becomes a very critical individual in the development of sugarcane farming. We should not leave it to the whims of the Board to decide whether to appoint crop inspectors or not to appoint. Hon. Temporary Speaker, under Clause 35, there shall be establishment of a fund to be known as the Sugar Development Fund. I would ask Hon. Wangwe to have a conversation with some of us who have seen funds domiciled under Boards. As you may know, in the Kenya Information and Communications Act (KICA), there is a fund provided for known as the Universal Service Fund. How Boards interact with such funds is a topic that needs to be studied before we take the route that we are taking. Hon. Wangwe, I will be consulting with you so that we have a conversation on how to domicile this fund in the Board without the fund’s administrator having to compete for power - or conflicting, during its operations - with the Board. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}