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{
    "id": 1569756,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1569756/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 224,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kisumu East, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Shakeel Shabbir",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. When I was young, there were agricultural extension officers. As much as I understand the basis of this Bill, I do not understand why we need to reinvent the wheel. They were there. This Bill is just coming up with another Board with all their expenses and other things to come up and put together an agricultural policy statement. Looking at the membership of the Board, the Chairman is to be appointed by the Cabinet Secretary. I do not know why this Board needs to be there. Why can it not be a department in the Ministry of Agriculture? It should be the job of the Ministry of Agriculture to come up with a policy document, like the Ministry of Health does. I have been involved with the Ministry of Health, and we have done our draft document strategy papers for five years. I do not see why this should be done. I wonder why. What was the logic in the Senate going through this and reinventing the wheel? Agriculture is a pillar of our country. If we do not develop the sector, we will be like a three-legged stool when one of them is not working. My brother, Mhe. Adan from Mandera West mentioned earlier that even Saudi Arabia, which is in the middle of deserts, has started doing this. I am concerned why we want to marry agriculture with the national Government and the county government. The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a classic example of the way things went wrong. Why do you want to do it again? I see no reason for this. Our seeds were one of the best in Africa. We had the best agricultural research on seeds. Now, we have misused that. We had the Kenya Seed Company Limited (KSC), Western Seed Company and others. Now, most of these companies are moving to Zambia to develop seeds there. In the colonial times and even under the first 20 or 30 years, we had the capacity to develop the best maize seed in Africa, and now we are going to other places. Now, we want research. Research for what? We do not need to research. We know where we are going. We do not need these so-called white-collar workers coming in with their research. They need to roll down their sleeves and come up with a policy. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I am sorry, I called you Chairman. I am very sorry, Hon. Temporary Speaker. This is not what we want. We do not want another Board. As much as I would like to support some of the thoughts that have been given, I actually oppose the whole Bill. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}