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{
    "id": 1431843,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1431843/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 217,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kitui Central, WDM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr) Makali Mulu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I want to thank the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Agriculture and Livestock and its Members for this Report, which has taken a lot of time before it was presented to this House. The matter of maize subsidy was a very serious one during the 12th Parliament. I remember one of the key issues that became a hot potato was the use of Article 223 of the Constitution to pay some of those bills. Even though the recommendations are very good, I am very disappointed with the timing. The maize subsidy program was designed to steal public funds. In such a situation, there is need to fast-track the recommendations so that action can be taken. Looking at this Report, a number of gaps have been identified. The first one is that according to the contracts signed, it was not clear what needed to be done. Looking at what the President had in mind in terms of this program, there was a lot of distortion. The implementers did not adhere to the policy issues. The issue of payments caught my eyes. Some millers were favoured as opposed to others. Why would one favour a particular miller in terms of payment in a public arrangement and fail to pay others? To me, those are the issues. Another important thing that has been brought out in this Report, which is criminal, is that the Committee is not sure whether the millers milled the flour. That means some millers might have been paid for flour that was never distributed or produced. Therefore, from the word ‘go’, there must have been people who planned that this program would be used to steal public funds. It is coming too late in the day, but I agree with the proposal that we need a special audit for that program. The Auditor-General should take up this matter and do a thorough audit of the program. On that basis, we should see some people being taken to court. The other recommendation relates to the Director of Criminal Investigations needing to do further investigation on a number of issues. We must learn our lessons from that program which did not have timelines; for example, how long it will be implemented. It was done for a month as we approached the elections which means that all said and done, people were looking for money to fund their campaigns. There is no law in this country which allows politicians to use public funds to finance their campaigns. This is against the law and action must be taken against all those who were involved."
}