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{
    "id": 1338666,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1338666/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 251,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Alego Usonga, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Samuel Atandi",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in this Motion. The sugar industry in Kenya continues to be a mess. This is something which we, as Members of Parliament, all know. We assume and pretend that Kenya is a sugar manufacturing country but in the real sense, it is not. Whatever we consume in this country from the so-called sugar milling factories is actually sugar which is imported from other countries cheaply and then it is branded. If you go to supermarkets, you will find sugar branded as Mumias Sugar or Sony Sugar. However, in actual sense, it is not produced locally. It is imported, re-packaged and then it is sold as sugar from this country. I fully support the Motion on Regulation of the Sugar Industry to Discourage Branding of Sugar by Non-millers. Having said that, that is not really the solution for the crisis in the sugar sector. It will involve more. At this juncture, I want to tell you that it is the political class that is responsible for the mess in the sugar sector. Sugar is the sector that funds politics. If you see somebody in State House today, you will find that the resources used to do his campaign came from the sugar barons. That is why each and every year, new licenses are given out to people who want to import sugar. If we are serious about supporting the sector and making it profitable, the political class must change. While we are doing this, the farmer who goes out of the way to do all the work suffers. My prayer and request to this regime, even though it will achieve nothing... In the short and long run, I do not think there is anything that it will achieve. However, I tell them to try to do something in the sugar sector. They are all over the country every week. They go to Nyanza and Western to talk to sugarcane farmers and promise them things they cannot achieve. The President was in Nyanza recently. He purportedly waived the loans due to sugar farmers and sugar factories. Whatever he did is not surprising."
}