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{
    "id": 1490655,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1490655/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 149,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Thangwá",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "ask myself if I have a shirt that I want to sell, do I need the Government to tell me where to sell it and who to sell it to? Does the Government need to tell me that I have worn the yellow T-shirt for a long time and need to sell it to another person who would want to wear the shirt? As a Senate, we need to rethink because we are becoming “over-prescriptious”, if there is a word like that. We are subscribing and telling people what they should do in the morning, afternoon and evening, instead of trying to help the people manage their own affairs at the county level because we have devolution. I heard someone telling us to prescribe that the tractors transporting sugar cane should not travel at night, instead of having civic education to train the drivers. Nobody has called for the prescription of the miraa drivers, yet they drive carelessly on our roads causing accidents right, left and centre. However, someone is saying that we should tell the drivers transporting sugarcane to the factories to drive during the day, instead of giving the conditions for driving at night like good light and a siren, if they have to. We do not need to put it within the law because if we do so, we are giving the law enforcers some moment of getting bribes and corruption will be enhanced by this. We need to think about it. What happened on this Floor of this House a few days ago is an eye-opener. I had a lot of faith with the Senate, but I realized that we are on our own and that nobody is following the law. What do we need? Instead of reintroducing the law to our people, we need to tell them they are free, but make sure we give them civic education on safety, but not the law. I want to give you an example. During the Moi Era, it was against the unwritten law for you to open your shop when President Moi was in your area. The shopping centres were closed when President Moi came to your area. If you had not closed your shop, the chiefs and the Administration Police (AP) could arrest you because of doing that. During that time, people thought it was the law and they complied until they became civilized and were made to understand that it is their right to open their shops and sell. We are probably doing injustice to our people when we over-prescribe on the issues of sugarcane, coffee and tea. Let us give the power to the Kenya Sugar Board to sit down and decide whatever they want to do. The New Clause 19B says that a miller may enter into a contract of cane supply with another miller. This means that when the factory of the miller is temporarily broken, a miller is given a leeway to subcontract another miller. It sounds easy and okay, but where does the farmer come in this instance? Where does the farmer come in when there is an oversupply of cane in the miller? If you cannot handle supply, why do we give you an opportunity to subcontract, rather than giving the farmer an opportunity to look for where the price is good and take their goods there? I am saying this with a lot of faith and hope in the legislature that what happened the other day is an eye-opener. We might be pretending to be doing good, yet we are trying to affirm some organisations like the Agricultural and Food Authority (AFA), which is a failure in this country. That is why the sugarcane, coffee and tea sectors have collapsed. By coming up with this law, we are opening channels of corruption to some agencies, so instead of helping our farmers, we help these agencies. 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."
}