Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 1284806,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1284806/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 155,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) John K. Mutunga",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I stand to second that the House adopts the Report on the action plans to revive and commercialise the state-owned sugar companies. As alluded to in the moving notes, these companies have many problems. The problems need to be resolved. The greatest problem is the level of indebtedness. They have many debts. The other issue is the aging nature of processors. The machines are very old. They are inefficient as such. Therefore, they are costly and use very ancient technology. The governance structures of these companies are wanting. The policies and the processes they use also need revisiting, therefore the need for us to call for revitalisation of some of those companies. Hon. Speaker, my Co-Chair has alluded to the monies required to bail out the five companies. But bailing out the companies is not enough to revive the sector. In order to revive the sector, we need to revisit the major productivity-enhancing options that we need to take as a country in order to revitalise the cane industry. In order to do that, we need to embark on research innovations, technologies, and management practices that need to be developed to accompany the varieties produced from research centres. Hon. Speaker, we have a cane research institute which has been very poorly funded. Despite that, they clearly indicated to us that they have come up with 27 varieties of sugarcane plants. These varieties have not yet been tried out on farms. The varieties grown on farms now take between 18 and 24 months to mature. They do not have very high sucrose content. They clearly told us that the sucrose content of these varieties is extremely high. So, we need to improve this sector by combining sucrose content and fast-growing varieties. We need to support the research institute to do this work and move out the varieties they have. Soil health is the other issue that needs to be taken care of. The soil where cane is grown needs to be studied thoroughly. Therefore, we also need to do varietal specificity or matching with the soils of different areas. Some of the varieties produced, especially for the coastal region, have been realised to mature within six to nine months. If we can have a cane variety maturing in six months, especially under enhanced production where we shall use irrigation, we can produce two harvests in a year. If we can have two crops in a year and do 692, sometimes 1,000 metric tonnes of sugar, we shall exceed our national demand for sugar, which is 1.1 million metric tonnes, even to export some sugar. The other issue that needs to be looked into is the provision of sufficient water. It is time we considered sugarcane under irrigation. This is happening in the coastal region where we have sugar production. Investors in the coastal region have clearly shown the possibility of harnessing water, especially surface runoff and stream water, and dam it and use it for downstream irrigation. This can help a great deal in the production of sugarcane. We met many stakeholders. I do not need to go into what we agreed with them. However, I would like to highlight two or three points from the stakeholder consultation. One of them is that the withdrawal of the Sugar Development Levy was a major drawback affecting the cane production industry. Cane development and research need to be supported. The actual 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."
}