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{
    "id": 1349643,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1349643/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 697,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. I beg to move that the Tea (Amendment) Bill (Senate Bills No.1 of 2023) be now read a Second Time. This is a very important Bill that was brought to this House by yours truly in the last Senate. At that time, the thinking amongst many of our colleagues was that this is an industry that was heavily disorganized, despite the fact that it is the goose that lays the golden egg, so to speak. It is the largest foreign income earner to the Republic, yet its primary producers and the citizens that oil this wheel and ensure that we have millions of kilos of tea to sell at the Mombasa Auction and earn the country the much-needed foreign exchange continue to wallow in poverty. It came at a time when in 14 out of the 47 counties that have got tea in this country, farmers were uprooting the crop, having been dissatisfied with what was happening in this industry. Therefore, we moved a Motion in this House, supported by our colleagues, formed an ad hoc committee and went across this country, took views from farmers. Afterwards, we collapsed all the views to a Bill, then known as the Tea Bill of 2020. We passed it here in the House and forwarded it to the National Assembly where they equally made significant changes. At that time, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries did not seem interested in our endeavours as a House of Parliament. This is a lesson to colleagues, who I see many times try to pass Bills and then come back and ask how come the Ministry is not interested. I always tell them this story. Madam Temporary Speaker, when we first began this exercise, the Ministry appeared before the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and said that they were not interested in the legislative exercise that was going on, because at that time, they were trying to pass certain regulations which they thought would address that. They soon ran into problems. Kenya is a heavily litigious country. We litigate almost anything and everything. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}