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{
    "id": 1338712,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1338712/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 297,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, thank you. Hon. Peter Salasya is now working in Parliament. I wish this could go on record so that the people he represents would know he is doing exactly what they elected him to do. I congratulate the very youthful, very vibrant, and extremely intelligent Hon. Peter Salasya for bringing this Motion to the Floor of the House. During the debate on the Sugar Bill, I mentioned that our affinity for sugar is pretty recent. Granulated sugar has been in use for a very long time. As far back as the 6th century, Indians were already using granulated sugar. Refined sugar is recent because it came with the effort of colonisation. I associate it with colonisation to make the point that the sugar history has been replete with bitter sweet incidents of exploitation, racialism, obesity, annexing land that has been used for settlement and environmental degradation. In Kenya, there has been a painful history of exploitation of farmers. So, any efforts to remedy the farmers’ plight should be welcome. I speak when this House has already debated and passed the Sugar Bill. Over and above that, this House, on its own Motion, has done what it needs to do. If the ills plaguing the factories are the problem, this House has done its bit. As recently as Monday this week, the President received the instruments from this Parliament that were handed over after signing by the Speaker. Those are the instruments that set in Motion the setting aside of close to Ksh200 billion that shall be used to write off the debt. As we debate this Motion, I urge Hon. Peter Salasya to go and tell his people that, collegiately, this House has done what it needs to do, is in support of his thinking and, unanimously across the different aisles, it is in agreement with what he is asking for his people. This House is not sitting on its laurels looking at farmers wallowing in poverty, while it is doing nothing. It is doing what it needs to do at a time like this. In the Sugar Bill that we passed; one critical issue needs to be reported to the sugar belt: how they shall ring-fence the land they use for farming sugar. After ring-fencing the land, they ought to adopt modern practices in farming so that we can have a crop that matures early enough, is harvested early enough and is disposed of fast enough for the farmers to make money in good time. Finally, Hon. Temporary Speaker, I would like to talk about the issue of historical governance impropriety in the sugar belt. The sugar mills are being run down by individuals who have very little concern for the farmers and the people of the area. It has to be repeated loudly from the hilltops and from the tops of the minarets and the mosques and top places of this country that mambo ni matatu to anybody who becomes a hindrance to the benefit of farmers in this country. To them, mambo ni matatu. We have started on the sugar route. We need to do the same for cash crops like coffee and cotton in other regions so that even as the sugarcane farmer is benefiting, even the…"
}