HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 175437,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/175437/?format=api",
"text_counter": 221,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ruteere",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 92,
"legal_name": "Silas Muriuki Ruteere",
"slug": "silas-ruteere"
},
"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this Motion. I thank Eng. Maina for coming up with this Motion. This Motion is very timely. In the last few days, we have seen politicians going to meetings. When they shout their slogans, the answer from Kenyans has been unga ! unga ! Politicians have been met with shouts of unga, because ordinary Kenyans cannot access the maize flour at the price at which it is being sold currently. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, any country which is not able to feed her people is not worthy its name. The concern of the Government should be how its people should be fed. Kenyans can only contribute to the country's economic activities if they are healthy. In order for them to be healthy, they have to be fed properly. They have to be fed, so that they can work. Their children should access food and be healthy, so that they can go to school. Today, there is hue and cry across the country that people are dying of hunger in some parts of the country. There is no maize, which is this country's staple food. There is no maize flour. Even the price of rice has gone up drastically, and is now almost a luxury. So, time has come for the Government to fix the prices of basic commodities in this country. If the prices to be fixed by the Government are not acceptable to traders, the Government should subsidise those commodities, so that ordinary Kenyans can access them. We know that maize flour, maize, beans, rice, sugar, milk and bread are some of the essential foodstuffs that Kenyans eat on a daily basis. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the average Kenyan works the whole day and earns about Kshs100, with which he cannot buy a packet of maize flour. Even now, when maize flour is being sold at Kshs72 per two-kilogramme packet, one cannot buy cooking fat, some meat and vegetables, in addition to the maize flour packet, using only Kshs100. So, there should be a way of ensuring that food is accessible to Kenyans, which is to make sure that basic essential foodstuffs are subsidized. I used to stay in Scotland, where milk, eggs and bread were highly subsidised. There was guarantee that everybody could access the basic foodstuffs. One could, at least, buy milk at a price December 10, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 3987 one could afford. Kenyans are in need of unga . You realise that, that demand dictated on the question of the price of maize flour this morning. This was as a result of that demand by Kenyans - that the prices of maize flour must be lowered. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Government today can say that the prices of maize flour are Kshs72 and Kshs52 per packet for the two respective brands, but eventually, traders and brokers will increase the prices of this commodity to an extent that it might become unaffordable. So, I highly support Eng. Maina's Motion that the Government steps in, as a matter of urgency, and puts in place price controls. Where businessmen and traders feel that they need to sell the commodity at a higher price than that given by the Government, then the Government should come in with a subsidy. With those remarks, I beg to support."
}