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{
    "id": 1349644,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1349644/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 698,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "Someone was joking earlier today that with the many court orders that have come out of the courts this week, it will not be long before a judge in Kenya issues an order barring the sun from rising in the east and setting in the west, never minding how that can be implemented. Therefore, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries ran into headwinds with the regulations they were trying to pursue at that time, they then appeared before our colleagues in the National Assembly when that House was considering that Bill. They dumped many of the regulations they were trying to pass. We had an egg and chicken situation. If we killed the Bill because of those regulations that I, as a Mover of the Bill had fundamental issues with some of them, then we ran the risk of losing the entire Bill and all the work we had done. So, the binding wisdom of the House was that we pass the Bill and then at a future time, we will have an opportunity to amend and clean it. Therefore, the Bill was passed and assented to by the President and the Tea Board of Kenya was set up and they were supposed to follow through all those regulations. Madam Temporary Speaker, immediately thereafter, many aggrieved stakeholders went to court and various sections of the Act were expunged. The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), which is a large stakeholder, went to court because of certain sections of the law. There was the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) because of the levies we had introduced for them. There was the Kenya Tea Growers Association (KTGA) which is an association comprised of multinationals that run the tea business in the country. They were not appreciative of the levies we had proposed and one or two other things. There were also individual factories. This Bill as it is now is an attempt to clean up that law and look into those provisions that we did not agree with at that time. Sen. Wakili Sigei, the drafter of this Bill has attempted to do a clean-up of certain issues. If you read Clause One of the Bill, there is the definition of export and import because this was something that brought many challenges. The Bill is made of a lot of “delete this” “read this instead of the other”. This is because of that clean-up and the history I have just given and the reason this Bill is drafted in this nature. Madam Temporary Speaker, Clause Four speaks about persons being appointed under Clause 1(a), (g) and (f) and they shall serve for a term of three years. These will be the directors in many public-owned factories, otherwise known as KTDA factories. We will attempt to do a proper clean-up of these because KTDA is a managing agent. There could be in future, other managing agents that would emerge and compete with KTDA. I hold the view that this will be the time. If there a factory that is managed by KTDA on this side of the valley, let another one be managed across the valley by another managing agent, so that farmers can compare on the practices of management in the two factories. Without competition, it is impossible to achieve some of these visions and dreams we have about for our farmers. That is part of what is being spoken about. Clause Five is about the definition of what the factory is and their duties are. Clause Six of the Bill is an amendment to Section 31, which says that all the tea being brought to the Special Economic Zone Enterprise or an Export Processing Zone shall be declared to the Board in the prescribed format. 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."
}