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{
    "id": 1463657,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1463657/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 570,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kisumu County, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Ruth Odinga",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I am very honoured. Hon. Bensuda, I am sure you know that in order of seniority, I have been allowed by the Temporary Speaker to speak before you. I start off by stating that I am very radical. I believe that the sugar sector should be privatised. I am a farmer who comes from the sugar-belt area. At the moment, my farms are not doing any commercial sugarcane farming. There are very many cartels. I want to tell you without fear that when you look at the sugar sector, most of the time, cartels operate within the Government sectors. And those Government sectors are the ones that own the sugarcane. For example, there is a time that the Kenya Sugar Board (KSB) gave mills like Mumias Sugar Company a license to import sugar. They would import it and package it as Mumias Sugar and sell it. This tells you that there was no way the local farmers who were dependent on Mumias Sugar Company Limited would take their sugarcane to be milled there. Secondly, apart from the sugar itself, so many people depend on the by-products of sugarcane like molasses. Kenya had two factories that were distilling ethanol, Spectre International and Agro-Chemical and Food Company Limited (ACFC). As we speak, those two factories do not produce enough ethanol and they used to be the only factories that produced ethanol in the whole of East Africa. Due to lack of molasses, which is a by-product of sugarcane, they are not able to operate. Spectre International was employing more than 500 people, but it is now closed down. Agro Chemicals & Food Company Limited is under-producing because they do not have the sugarcane. Apart from that, the private mills that are there have decided to now open their own ethanol factories within the sugarcane zones, denying those other companies the molasses, that is the by-product that they need. Secondly, I also believe that those mills should be privatised because those small and middle scale farmers are not able to take their sugarcane to the factories. And because of that, they are now selling their pieces of land. A person with 500 acres of land has now sold to seven other people and they are all taking the sugarcane to the factory. If you want to privatise those mills, you must consolidate the people to sell the land so that the private company that is coming is able to buy it and produce. Otherwise, that will not be possible with those small holding farmers. I also want to sell my farm because I have nothing to do with it. I might not probably get somebody to sell 500 acres of land to but, maybe, 100 acres to five different people. Once we do that, we are moving further from consolidating and selling to the private sector. Privatisation is the best way because of the cartels in the Government. As I speak, the privately-owned sugar mills like Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries Limited and Butali Sugar Mills, are the ones that are taking all the sugarcane within Muhoroni and our nucleus farms. So, there is no way our factories can compete with the private sugar millers."
}