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{
    "id": 1498794,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498794/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 388,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Deputy Speaker",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker. My question is directed to the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Development. I will take just one minute to provide some background, as this is a follow-up to an action by the previous Cabinet Secretary. Cabinet Secretary, on the 31st of August 2023, I wrote to the then Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture relating to the use of carcinogenic pesticides in Kenya. At that time, I had already brought a Motion in Parliament on September 2019. That was in the 12th Parliament. Again in 2022, in the 13th Parliament, I raised the same issue. Again, in the year 2023, I sought a Motion for the removal from office of the members of the Pest Control Products Board. The reason is that 76 percent of the total volume of pesticides that are used in Kenya have one or more active ingredients that are categorized as highly hazardous pesticides. This information is with the Ministry of Agriculture. It was confirmed that some of the pesticides, in fact, over 40 percent of the pesticides that come into the country, are pesticides that have been banned in the United States and other parts of North America and also in the entire Continent of Europe. However, those same pesticides are manufactured in those countries, but for export only to countries such as Kenya. Therefore, we want to ask: (a) What is the status of implementing the recommendations of the National Assembly with regard to Public Petition No. 70 of 2019? (b) What steps have been taken by the Ministry to withdraw those harmful chemical pesticides in the Kenyan market? (c) What has the Cabinet Secretary done to respond to my letter of 31st August 2023, which I also had an opportunity to bring it to your attention during the time you were being vetted for appointment as the Cabinet Secretary? (d) What steps have been taken to remove the pesticide formerly called Roundup, which currently is being sold under a different trade name but with the same ingredients, from the Kenyan market? This is, despite the fact that, it is public knowledge, even known to the Pest Products Control Board, that in fact farmers in the United States were paid US$230 million for developing cancer as a result of using those pesticides. Thank you"
}